Yuri_language_(New_Guinea)

Karkar language

Karkar language

Pauwasi language spoken in Papua New Guinea

Not to be confused with Yuri language (Amazon).

The Karkar language, also known as Yuri, is the sole Eastern Pauwasi language of Papua New Guinea. There are about a thousand speakers along the Indonesian border spoken in Green River Rural LLG, Sandaun Province.

Quick Facts Native to, Region ...
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Writing system

Karkar alphabet[2]
aáaeaoe éiɨoou uffwkkw m
mwmmpmpwn nknkwntppw rstwy

Dialects

Dialects are:[3][4]

Classification

Karkar-Yuri is not related to any other language in Papua New Guinea, and was therefore long thought to be a language isolate. This is the position of Wurm (1983), Foley (1986), and Ross (2005). However, Timothy Usher noticed that it is transparently related to the Pauwasi languages across the border in Indonesia. Indeed, it may even form a dialect continuum with the Eastern Pauwasi language Emem. This was foreshadowed in non-linguistic literature: a 1940 map shows the 'Enam' (Emem)–speaking area as including the Karkar territory in PNG, and the anthropologist Hanns Peter knew that the Karkar dialect continuum continued across the border into Emem territory.[5]

Pauwasi cognates

Cognates between Karkar-Yuri and the Pauwasi family (Tebi and Zorop languages) listed by Foley (2018):[6]

More information gloss, Tebi ...

Pronouns

Pronouns listed by Ross (2005):

More information sg, pl ...

Object forms take -an, sometimes replacing the -o: onan, amoan, man, yinan, námoan, yumoan. Mao is a demonstrative 'that one, those'; it contrasts with nko, nkoan 'the other one(s)'.

Pronouns listed by Foley (2018) are:[6]

More information sg, pl ...

Phonology

The Karkar inventory is as follows.[7]

Stress assignment is complex, but not phonemic within morphemes. Syllable structure is CVC, assuming nasal–plosive sequences are analyzed as prenasalized consonants.

Vowels

Karkar has a vowel inventory consisting of 11 vowels, which is considered very high for a Papuan language.

Karkar vowels
iɨu
 e  ə  o 
ɛɔ
ɐ
ɑ

There is also one diphthong, ao /ɒɔ/. Vowels are written á /ɐ/, é /ə/, ae /ɛ/, o /ɔ/, ou /o/, ɨ /ɨ/.

Foley (2018) lists the 11 Karkar-Yuri vowels as:[6]: 370 

iɨu
eəo
æʌɔ
aɒ

Some vowel height contrasts in Karkar-Yuri (Foley 2018):[6]: 370 

  • ki ‘yam’
  • kɨ ‘loosen’
  • ku ‘cut crosswise in half’
  • ke ‘edible nut’
  • kər ‘put in netbag’
  • ko ‘pig’
  • kæ ‘egg’
  • kʌʔr ‘swamp’
  • kɔ ‘again’
  • kar ‘speech’
  • kɒ ‘bird species’

There are four contrasting central vowel heights:[6]: 370 

  • kɨr ‘red bird of paradise’ (Paradisaea rubra)
  • kər ‘put in net bag’
  • kʌʔr ‘swamp’
  • kar ‘speech’

Consonants

More information Labial, Alveolar ...

The rhotics and glottal(ized) consonants do not appear initially in a word, and plain /t/, the approximants, and the labialized consonants do not occur finally. Glottal stop only occurs finally. Final k spirantizes to [x]. Plosives are voiced intervocalically. Intervocalic f and p neutralize to [β] (apart from a few names, where [f] is retained), and intervocalic k is voiced to [ɣ]. Phonemic labialized stops only occur in two words, apwar 'weeds, to weed' and ankwap 'another'. [contradictory] Otherwise consonants are labialized between a rounded and a front vowel, as in pok-ea [pɔɣʷeɑ] 'going up'. In some words, the plosive of a final NC is silent unless suffixed: onomp [ɔnɔm̚] 'my', onompono [ɔnɔmbɔnɔ] 'it's mine'.

Prenasalized and labialized consonant contrasts:[6]: 370 

  • pi ‘bird tail’, pwi ‘enough’, mporan ‘tomorrow’
  • kar ‘voice’, ŋkɔte ‘over there’, kwar ‘ground’, ŋkwakwo ‘many kinds’

Plain and preglottalized sonorants contrasts, which only occur in word finals:[6]: 370 

  • ərər ‘sore’, ərəʔr ‘dig a hole’
  • pan ‘sago flour’, pəʔn ‘blunt’

Basic vocabulary

Below are some basic vocabulary words in Karkar-Yuri.[6]

Karkar-Yuri basic vocabulary
‘I’ɔn
‘you (sg)’am
‘we’nəm (incl) / yin (excl)
‘belly’yare
‘bird’ant
‘black’yəkəre
‘blood’yəri
‘breast’mɔm
‘come’koʔrop
‘eat’fɨr
‘eye’yi
‘foot’pu
‘give’səp
‘good’kwapwe
‘hand’yæ
‘head’me
‘hear’wao
‘house’nap
‘louse’yəʔmər
‘man’arɔp
‘mosquito’təʔnkarəp
‘name’e
‘road’mwæ
‘root’arak
‘sand’kaʔrək
‘tooth’yu
‘tree’yao
‘water’ənt
‘who’wao
‘one’ankər
‘two’anənk

Further reading

  • Price, Dorothy and Veda Rigden. 1988. Karkar-Yuri – English Dictionary. Unpublished manuscript. Ukarumpa, PNG: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
  • Rigden, Veda n.d. Karkar grammar essentials. Unpublished manuscript. Ukarumpa: SIL-PNG.

References

  1. [1]
    Karkar at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. [2]
    SIL 2004.
  3. [3]
    Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2019). "Papua New Guinea languages". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (22nd ed.). Dallas: SIL International.
  4. [4]
    United Nations in Papua New Guinea (2018). "Papua New Guinea Village Coordinates Lookup". Humanitarian Data Exchange. 1.31.9.
  5. [5]
    Harald Hammarström, 2010. The status of the least documented language families in the world
  6. [6]
    Foley, William A. (2018). "The Languages of the Sepik-Ramu Basin and Environs". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 197–432. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
  7. [7]
    Dorothy Price, 1993. Organised Phonology Data: Karkar-Yuri Language [YUJ]: Green River – Sandaun Province

Works cited
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