Wutung language
Skou language spoken in Papua New Guinea
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wutung (Udung), Musu, and Nyao, are dialects of a unnamed Skou language of Papua New Guinea. They are spoken in Bewani/Wutung Onei Rural LLG of Sandaun Province and in Jayapura, province of Papua, Indonesia.
Sangke and the language of several other villages of the interior are reported to be similar, and may be dialects.
Tok Pisin and English are widely spoken in the area, and many Wutung people speak Indonesian too.[3][4]
Location
Wutung village (2.60857°S 141.010203°E) is in Sandaun Province, on the northern coast and adjacent to the border with Indonesia. There are about 600 living in Wutung village, most of whom speak Wutung. Traditional Wutung land extends across the border to the Tami River, but while people garden plots in that expanse they all live in the village. Some Wutung people also live on the Indonesian side. Some of them moved to settle and breed in their current location in the province of Papua.[5]
The nearby villages of Musu (12 km east on the coast, at 2.627641°S 141.10172°E) and Nyao Kono (about 12 km due south, at 2.80788°S 141.054278°E) have closely related dialects which are named after their villages (Musu and Nyao). These three speech varieties are very closely related and are easily mutually intelligible.
Phonology
Wutung has fifteen consonants and seven vowels, six of which have nasal variants. This gives a total of 28 phonemes. Wutung also makes suprasegmental distinctions in tone.
Consonants
Wutung is one of the very few languages that lack velar consonants.
Vowels
Wutung has thirteen vowels, which includes seven oral and six nasal vowels. The table below shows the oral vowels. Each of these vowels, apart from the close-mid vowel ur /ɵ/, has an equivalent nasal vowel. The nasal vowels are indicated using the same symbol as the equivalent oral, but with a following ng, e.g. ca, 'pig' vs. cang 'blossom', the latter having the nasal vowel.
Pronouns
Wutung has a simple system of personal pronouns with three persons (1st, 2nd and 3rd), two numbers (singular and plural) and gender in the third person singular pronouns. The same set of pronouns are used for object and subject.
I nie we netu thou me you etu he qey they tetu she cey
External links
- Paradisec has an open access collection of Don Laycock’s materials that includes Zimakani language materials
