Pahoturi languages

Family of language in New Guinea From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Pahoturi River languages are a small family of Papuan languages spoken around the Pahoturi (Paho River). This family includes eight language varieties including Agöb (Dabu), Em,[1] Ende, Idan,[2] Idi, Idzuwe,[3] Kawam, and Taeme, which are spoken in the Pahoturi River area south of the Fly River, just west of the Eastern Trans-Fly languages. Idzuwe is no longer spoken. Ross (2005) tentatively includes them in the proposed Trans-Fly – Bulaka River family,[4] though more recent work has classified Pahoturi River as an independent family within the region.[5]

Quick facts Geographic distribution, Linguistic classification ...
Pahoturi
Paho River
Geographic
distribution
Pahoturi River, New Guinea
Linguistic classificationTrans-Fly or independent language family
  • Pahoturi
Subdivisions
Language codes
Glottologpaho1240
Map: The Pahoturi languages of New Guinea
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Some Pahoturi River speakers were originally hunter-gatherers, but have recently shifted to becoming gardeners.[5]:649

Classification

Wurm (1975) and Ross (2005) suggest that the Pahoturi languages may be related to the Tabo (Waia) language just north of the Fly delta. However, they present no evidence, and the pronouns do not match.[6]

Evans and colleagues (2018) classify the Pahoturi River languages as an independent language family.[5]

Languages

Five of the varieties have traditionally been grouped[5] into the following two language groups:

  1. Agöb (Dabu), Ende, and Kawam
  2. Idi and Taeme

Preliminary work on the language family suggests that these varieties form a dialect chain. It is assumed that Em is more closely related to Agob and Ende, while Idan and Idzuwe are more closely related to Idi and Taeme.

Pahoturi River languages and respective demographic information listed by Evans (2018) are provided below.[5]

More information Language, Location ...
List of Pahoturi River languages
LanguageLocationPopulationAlternate names
Idicentral-east Morehead Rural LLG774
Taemenortheast Morehead Rural LLG834Tame, Kondobol, Yao
Agobsoutheast Morehead Rural LLG1,437Bugi, Dabu
Endeeast Morehead Rural LLG542
Kawameast Morehead Rural LLG and west Oriomo-Bituri Rural LLG457Wipim
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Phonemes

Usher (2020) reconstructs the consonant inventory as follows:[7]

*m*mʷ*n[*ŋʷ]
*p*pʷ*t*ts*k*kʷ
*b*bʷ*d*dz*g*gʷ
*mb*mbʷ*nd*ɳɖ*ndz*ŋg*ŋgʷ
*l
*w*r*j

Pronouns

The pronouns Ross reconstructs for the family are:[4]

Proto-Pahoturi River

I*ŋa-nawe?
thou*ba or *beyou*-bi
s/he*bothey?

Lindsey lists the following pronouns for each of the language varieties in the family.[8]

More information Case, English ...
Pahoturi River pronouns
Case English Agob Em Ende Kawam Idi Taeme
Nominative I (1sg) ŋəna ŋəna ŋəna ŋəna ŋən ŋən
thou (2sg) boŋo boŋo boŋo buŋo
s/he (3sg) bo bogo bogo bo bo bo
we exclusive

(1.nsg.excl)

ŋumi ŋumi ŋəmi ŋəmi ŋəmi/bi bi
we inclusive

(1.nsg.incl)

ibi ibi ibi ibi jɪbi jəbi
you (2nsg) bibi bibi bibi bibi
they (3nsg) ubi ubi ubi ubi bo/wɪbi bo/ubi
Accusative I (1sg) ŋənam ŋənam ŋənəm ŋonom bom ŋənəm
thou (2sg) bæm bæm bam bæm babom babom
s/he (3sg) obom obom obom obom obom obom
we exclusive

(1.nsg.excl)

ŋənam ŋumim ŋəmim ŋəmim bim ŋəmim
we inclusive

(1.nsg.incl)

ibom ibam ibim ibim jəbim jɪbim
you (2nsg) bæm bæm bibim bibim bibim bibim
they (3nsg) obam obæm ubim ubim ubim/wəbim ubim
Dative I (1sg) ŋɵmɽe ŋəmɽe ŋəmɽe ŋəmre blæ ŋəmʎæ
thou (2sg) bæɽe babɽe babɽe bæbre bæblæ bæbʎe
s/he (3sg) obɽe obɽe obɽe obo oblæ obʎe
we exclusive

(1.nsg.excl)

ŋɵmra ŋumra ŋəmira ŋəmira bli ŋəmʎi
we inclusive

(1.nsg.incl)

ibra ibra ibra ibra jəbli jɪbʎi
you (2nsg) bæra babra bibra bibra bibli bibʎi
they (3nsg) obra obra ubira ubira ubli ubʎi
Possessive I (1sg) ŋɵmo ŋəmo ŋəmo ŋomo bo/bænæ ŋəmo
thou (2sg) bəne bəne bəne bəne bənæ bənæ
s/he (3sg) obo obo obo obo obo/obænæ obo
we exclusive

(1.nsg.excl)

ŋəma ŋəma ŋəma ŋəma ba ŋəma
we inclusive

(1.nsg.incl)

iba iba iba iba jəba jəba
you (2nsg) bina bina bina bina bəna bəna
they (3nsg) oba oba oba oba oba wəba
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Documentation status

The Pahoturi River languages are all under various states of documentation. The following table lists some general lexical, grammatical, textual, and typological resources that have been identified for each of the currently spoken Pahoturi River languages.

More information Resource, Agob ...
Lexical resources
Resource Agob Em Ende Idan Idi Kawam Taeme
Yamfinder wordlist 1[9] 1[10] 4[11][12][13][14] N 2 3[15][16][17] 1[18]
Swadesh list Y[19] N N N Y N N
Dictionary N N Y[20] N Y N N
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More information Resource, Agob ...
Textual resources
Resource Agob Em Ende Idan Idi Kawam Taeme
Language data corpus (any) Y[21][22] Y[22] Y[22][23][24] N Y[25][26][22][27][28][29] Y[22] Y[22]
North Wind and the Sun text N N Y[30] N Y[31] N N
The Pear Story N N N N N N N
Bible translation N N Y (Mark)[32] N N Y (Mark)[33] Y (Luke)
Bible stories/Words of Life Y[34] N Y[35] N Y[36] N Y[37]
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More information Resource, Agob ...
Typological resources
Resource Agob Em Ende Idan Idi Kawam Taeme
Leipzig Valency Questionnaire N N Elicited the verbs in the Q, not online N Elicited the verbs in the Q, not online N N
Social Cognition Parallax Interview Corpus N N 5[22] N Y N N
Grambank N N Y[38] N Y[39] N N
Intercontinental Dictionary Series N N Y[40] N N N N
Numeral Systems of the World's Languages N N Y N Y N Y
PR Verbal Number questionnaire N N Y[41] N Y N N
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References

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