Misplaced Pages

Maʼya language

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
(Redirected from Wauyai) Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia Not to be confused with Maya languages or Maiya language.
Maʼya
Native toIndonesia
RegionRaja Ampat Islands
Native speakers5,000 (2000–2001)
Language familyAustronesian
Language codes
ISO 639-3Variously:
slz – Ma'ya
kgb – Kawe
lcc – Legenyem
wuy – Wauyai
Glottolograja1258
ELPLegenyem
Approximate location where Maʼya is spokenApproximate location where Maʼya is spokenMaʼya
Coordinates: 0°52′S 130°39′E / 0.86°S 130.65°E / -0.86; 130.65

Maʼya is an Austronesian language of the Raja Ampat islands in Southwest Papua, Indonesia. It is part of the South Halmahera–West New Guinea (SHWNG) subgroup and is spoken by about 6,000 people in coastal villages on the islands Misool, Salawati, and Waigeo, on the boundary between Austronesian and Papuan languages.

Dialects

Maʼya has five dialects: three on the island of Waigeo (Laganyan, Wauyai, and Kawe), one on Salawati, and one on Misool. The prestige dialect is the one on Salawati. The varieties spoken on Salawati and Misool are characterized by the occurrence of /s/ and /ʃ/ in some words, where the Waigeo dialects (and other related SHWNG languages) have /t/ and /c/ respectively.

On Waigeo Island, the three dialects are

  • The Kawe dialect in Selpele and Salyo villages in the northwest part of the island.
  • The Laganyan dialect is spoken in Araway, Beo, and Luptintol villages on the Mayalibit Bay coast.
  • The Wauyai/Wawiyai dialect is spoken in Wawiyai village on the Kabui Bay coast.

Phonology

Consonants

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosive voiceless p t k (ʔ)
voiced b d ɡ
Nasal m n (ŋ)
Fricative f s
Tap ɾ
Lateral l
Approximant w j
  • Twelve consonants may also be heard as palatalized /pʲ, bʲ, tʲ, dʲ, kʲ, ɡʲ/; /fʲ, sʲ/; /mʲ, nʲ, lʲ, wʲ/.
  • When in word-final position, six plosives can occur as unreleased , as well as nasals .
  • /l/ can be heard as retroflex in word-final positions, and when preceded by a back vowel.
  • /s/ can be pronounced as when between two /i/ vowel sounds.
  • /ɾ/ can also be heard as a trill , when in word-final positions.
  • /n/ can be heard as a velar , when preceding velar stops. may also be a loan phoneme.
  • The glottal stop is heard mostly phonetically, in word-initial position before initial vowels.
  • Other sounds /ɦ, x, z/ may also occur as a result of Arabic and Indonesian loanwords.

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid e ɔ
Open a
Phoneme Allophones
/e/ , ,
/a/ ,
/ɔ/ , ,
  • Other sounds /ɪ, ʊ/ are considered archiphonemes, and can also phonetically occur as a result of /i, u/ within vowel clusters.

Tone

In Maʼya both tone and stress are lexically distinctive. This means both the stress and the pitch of a word may affect its meaning. The stress and tone are quite independent from one another, in contrast to their occurrence in Swedish and Serbo-Croatian. The language has three tonemes (high, rising and falling). Out of over a thousand Austronesian languages, there are only a dozen with lexical tone; in this case it appears to be a remnant of shift from Papuan languages.

Lexical tone is found only in final syllables.

See also

  • Matbat language, a neighboring language with more extreme Papuan influence and five tones.

References

  1. Ma'ya at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Kawe at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Legenyem at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Wauyai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ Remijsen, Bert (2001). "Dialectal Variation in the Lexical Tone System of Ma'ya". Language and Speech. 44 (4): 473–499. doi:10.1177/00238309010440040301. PMID 12162695.
  3. Remijsen, Bert (November 2003), "New Perspectives in Word-Prosodic Typology" (PDF), IIAS Newsletter #32, p. 29, archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-06-11
  4. Arnold, Laura (2018). "A preliminary archaeology of tone in Raja Ampat". In Antoinette Schapper (ed.). Contact and substrate in the languages of Wallacea, Part 2. NUSA Vol. 64. pp. 7–37.
  5. Arnold, Laura Melissa (2018). Grammar of Ambel, an Austronesian language of Raja Ampat, west New Guinea (PhD). University of Edinburgh. hdl:1842/31120.
  6. van der Leeden, Alex C. (1993). Maʼya: a language study. Seri Terbitan LIPI-RUL Jakarta: Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia and Rijkuniversiteit te Leiden.
  7. Rivera-Castillo, Yolanda; Pickering, Lucy (2004). "Phonetic Correlates of Stress and Tone in a Mixed System". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages. 19 (2): 261–284. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.538.9834. doi:10.1075/jpcl.19.2.02riv.
  8. Arnold, Laura. 2018. ‘A preliminary archaeology of tone in Raja Ampat’. In Antoinette Schapper, ed. Contact and substrate in the languages of Wallacea, Part 2. NUSA 64: 7–37. doi:10.5281/zenodo.1450778

Further reading

  • van der Leeden, Alex (1993). Maʼya: Phonology. Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia. p. 97. ISBN 9789798258015.
Languages of Indonesia
Western Malayo-Polynesian languages
Official language
Malayo-Sumbawan
Javanesic
Celebic
Lampungic
Northwest Sumatra–
Barrier Islands
South Sulawesi
Barito
Kayan–Murik
Land Dayak
North Bornean
Philippine languages
Central Philippine
Gorontalo-Mongondow
Minahasan
Sangiric
Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages
Aru
Central Maluku
Flores–Lembata
Halmahera-
Cenderawasih
Kei-Tanimbar
MicronesianMapia
Selaru
Sumba–Flores
Timor–Babar
Western Oceanic
Papuan languages
North Halmahera
Timor–Alor–Pantar
Asmat–Mombum
West Bird's Head
South Bird's Head
East Bird's Head
West Bomberai
Dani
Paniai Lakes
Digul River
Foja Range
Lakes Plain
East Cenderawasih Bay
Yawa
Demta–Sentani
Ok
Momuna–Mek
Skou
South Pauwasi
East Pauwasi
West Pauwasi
Kaure–Kosare
Marind–Yaqai
Bulaka River
Kayagar
Border
Senagi
Mairasi
Kolopom
Yam
Lower Mamberamo
Others
Other languages
Creoles and Pidgins
Malay-based creoles
Other creoles and pidgins
Immigrant languages
Chinese
European
Indian
Middle Eastern
Others
Sign languages
† indicate extinct languages
South Halmahera–West New Guinea languages
Cenderawasih
Biakic
Yapen
Southwest
Halmahera Sea
South
Other
Other
Austronesian languages
Formosan
Malayo-Polynesian
Western
Philippine
Greater Barito*
Greater North Borneo*
Celebic
South Sulawesi
Central
Eastern
SHWNG
Oceanic
Western
Southern
  • * indicates proposed status
  • ? indicates classification dispute
  • † indicates extinct status
Categories: