| Mussau-Emira | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Papua New Guinea |
| Region | Islands of Mussau and Emirau (New Ireland Province) |
| Native speakers | 5,000 (2003) |
| Language family | Austronesian
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | emi |
| Glottolog | muss1246 |
| ELP | Mussau-Emira |
 Mussau is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
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The Mussau-Emira language is spoken on the islands of Mussau and Emirau in the St Matthias Islands in the Bismarck Archipelago.
Phonology
Phonemes
Consonants
Mussau-Emira distinguishes the following consonants.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Velar | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ |
| Plosive | p | t | k |
| Fricative | β | s | ɣ |
| Liquid | l ɾ |
- Fricative sounds /β, ɣ/ may also be heard as voiced stop sounds in word-initial position and when geminated.
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Low | a |
Stress
In most words the primary stress falls on the penultimate vowel and secondary stresses fall on every second syllable preceding that. This is true of suffixed forms as well, as in níma 'hand', nimá-gi 'my hand'; níu 'coconut', niúna 'its coconut'.
Morphology
Pronouns and person markers
Free pronouns
| Person | Singular | Plural | Dual | Trial | Paucal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person inclusive | ita | italua | itatolu | itaata | |
| 1st person exclusive | agi | ami | aŋalua | aŋatolu | aŋaata |
| 2nd person | io | am | amalua | amatolu | amaata |
| 3rd person | ia | ila | ilalua | ilotolu | ilaata |
Subject prefixes
Prefixes mark the subjects of each verb:
- (agi) a-namanama 'I'm eating'
- (io) u-namanama 'you're (sing.) eating'
- (ia) e-namanama 'he's/she's eating'
Sample vocabulary
Numbers
- kateva
- galua
- kotolu
- gaata
- galima
- gaonomo
- gaitu
- gaoalu
- kasio
- kasaŋaulu
References
- Mussau-Emira at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Further reading
- Blust, Robert (1984). "A Mussau vocabulary, with phonological notes." In Malcolm Ross, Jeff Siegel, Robert Blust, Michael A. Colburn, W. Seiler, Papers in New Guinea Linguistics, No. 23, 159-208. Series A-69. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. doi:10.15144/PL-A69 hdl:1885/145028
- Ross, Malcolm (1988). Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian languages of western Melanesia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. doi:10.15144/PL-C98 hdl:1885/145428
- Mussau Grammar Essentials by John and Marjo Brownie (Data Papers on Papua New Guinea Languages, volume 52). 2007. Ukarumpa: SIL.
External links
- Kaipuleohone has archived a word list of Mussau language
- Materials on Mussau-Emira are included in the open access Arthur Capell (AC1) and Malcolm Ross (MR1) collections held by Paradisec.
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