Pawaia language
Pawala language spoken in Papua New Guinea
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pawaia, also known as Sira, Tudahwe, Yasa, is a Papuan language that forms a tentative independent branch of the Trans–New Guinea family in the classification of Malcolm Ross (2005).
Distribution
Pawaia is spoken in:[1]
Classification
Although Pawaia has reflexes of proto-Trans–New Guinea vocabulary, Ross considers its inclusion questionable on available evidence. Usher classifies it instead with the Teberan languages. Noting insufficient evidence, Pawley and Hammarström (2018) leave it as unclassified rather than as part of Trans-New Guinea.[4]
Pawley and Hammarström (2018) do not consider there to be sufficient evidence for Pawaia to be classified as part of Trans-New Guinea, though they do note the following lexical resemblances between Pawaia and proto-Trans-New Guinea.[4]
- emi ‘breast’ < *amu
- in ‘tree’ < *inda
- su ‘tooth’ < *(s,t)i(s,t)i
Phonology
Vocabulary
The following basic vocabulary words are from Macdonald (1973)[6] and Trefry (1969),[5] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:[7]
gloss Pawaia head mu hair muse; sị ear nȩᶦ; nɛ̣i eye to; toᵘ nose ho; họ tooth su tongue ha̧pi; hɛmina leg hɛ; si̧ʔi̧ louse po; poř dog hạ; hɛ̧ pig ya bird deř; ge egg ge džu; yo blood sɛni; su̧ bone džɛmɛ; yɛmi skin hɛʔȩ; hɛi breast ɛmi tree i̧; in man džʌʔla; yala woman oi; u sun ol; olsuɛ; sia moon we; wɛ water sa fire sia stone tobu; topu road, path sụ name hɛʔɛpi; hopi eat hatisụɛ; ti haʔayɛ one pɛʔɛmi; pomi two naʔau; nau
Further reading
- Trefry, David. 1969. A Comparative Study of Kuman and Pawaian. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
