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May River Iwam, often simply referred to as Iwam, is a language of East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea.

It is spoken in Iyomempwi (4°14′28″S 141°53′34″E / 4.24117°S 141.89271°E / -4.24117; 141.89271 (Imombi)), Mowi (4°17′42″S 141°55′45″E / 4.294971°S 141.929199°E / -4.294971; 141.929199 (Mowi)), and Premai villages of Tunap/Hunstein Rural LLG in East Sepik Province, and other villages on the May River.

Phonology

Vowels

In non-final positions, /u/ /o/, /i/, and /e/ are [ʊ] [ɔ], [ɪ], and [ɛ], respectively. /ə/ appears only in nonfinal syllables. When adjacent to nasal consonants, vowels are nasalized; nasalization may also occur when adjacent to word boundaries.

Consonants

/p/ and /k/ are voiced fricatives ([β] and [ɣ]) respectively) when intervocalic and unreleased when final (/t/ is also unreleased when final). /ŋ/ is a nasal flap ([ɾ̃]) word-initially and between vowels. /s/ is [ts] initially and may otherwise be palatalized [sʲ]. Sequences of any consonant and /w/ are neutralized before /u/ where an offglide is always heard.

Phonotactics

Bilabial and velar consonants and /n/ may be followed by /w/ when initial. Other initial clusters include /pr/, /kr/, /hr/, /hw/, and /hn/ and final clusters are /w/ or /j/ followed by any consonant except for /h/ or /ŋ/.

Pronouns

May River Iwam pronouns:

	sg	du	pl
1	ka/ani	kərər	kərəm
2	ki	kor	kom
3m	si	sor	səm
3f	sa

Noun classes

Like the Wogamus languages, May River Iwam has five noun classes:

class	semantic category	prefix	example
class 1	male human referents	nu- (adult males); ru- (uninitiated or immature males)	yenkam nu-t man class.1-one ‘one man’
class 2	female human, children, or other animate referents	a(o)-	owi a-ois duck class.2-two ‘two ducks’
class 3	large objects	kwu-	ana kwu-(o)t hand class.3-one ‘a big hand’
class 4	small objects	ha-	ana ha-(o)t hand class.4-one ‘a small hand’
class 5	long objects	hwu-	ana hwu-(o)t hand class.5-one ‘a long hand’

As shown by the example above for ana ‘hand’, a noun can take on different classes depending on the physical characteristics being emphasized.

Verbal morphology

May river Iwam has four periodic tense suffixes: matutinal -yok, diurnal -harok, postmeridial -tep and nocturnal -wae.

Vocabulary

The following basic vocabulary words of Iwam are from Foley (2005) and Laycock (1968), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:

gloss	Iwam
head	mu
ear	wun
eye	nu
nose	nomwos
tooth	piknu
tongue	kwane
leg	wərku; wɨrku
louse	ŋən; nɨn
dog	nwa
pig	hu
bird	owit
egg	yen
blood	ni
bone	keew; kew
skin	pəw
breast	muy
tree	pae(kap); paykap
man	kam; yen-kam
woman	wik
sun	pi
moon	pwan
water	op; o(p)
fire	pay
stone	siya
eat	(n)ai; (nd)ai
one	oe; ruk; su
two	ŋwis

Notes

1. ^ May River Iwam at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. United Nations in Papua New Guinea (2018). "Papua New Guinea Village Coordinates Lookup". Humanitarian Data Exchange. 1.31.9.
3. ^ Laycock (1965:115)
4. ^ 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.
5. Foley (2018:286), Jacques, Guillaume (2023). "Periodic tense markers in the world's languages and their sources". Folia Linguistica. 57 (3): 539–562. doi:10.1515/flin-2023-2013.
6. Foley, W.A. "Linguistic prehistory in the Sepik-Ramu basin". In Pawley, A., Attenborough, R., Golson, J. and Hide, R. editors, Papuan Pasts: Cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. PL-572:109-144. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 2005.
7. Laycock, Donald C. 1968. Languages of the Lumi Subdistrict (West Sepik District), New Guinea. Oceanic Linguistics, 7 (1): 36-66.
8. Greenhill, Simon (2016). "TransNewGuinea.org - database of the languages of New Guinea". Retrieved 2020-11-05.

External links

• Materials on Sepic Iwam are included in the open access Arthur Capell collections (AC1) held by Paradisec.

References

• Laycock, D.C. (1965). "Three Upper Sepik phonologies". Oceanic Linguistics. 4 (1/2). University of Hawai'i Press: 113–118. doi:10.2307/3622917. JSTOR 3622917.

• Iwam languages
• Languages of East Sepik Province