Mairasi language

Mairasi
Native to	West Papua, Indonesia
Region	Bomberai Peninsula
Native speakers	3,300 (1996)[1]
Language family	Mairasi Mairasi;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	zrs
Glottolog	nucl1594[2]

Mairasi (AKA Faranyao and Kaniran) is a Papuan language of the Bomberai Peninsula of West Papua, Indonesia.

The Northeastern dialect may be a distinct language.

Phonology

Consonants:[3]

	t			ʔ
b	d	ʤ	ɡ
ɸ	s
β
m	n
	r
w

Vowels:[3]

i	u
e	o
a

Pronouns

Mairasi possessor prefixes are:[3]

	sg	pl
1	o-	ee-
2	ne-	e-
3	na-	ne-

Morphology

Case markers

Noun phrase case markers in Mairasi:[3]^:546

instrumental suffix -t
locative postposition ar
allative postposition ev(i)

Some examples:

ovuru-t /machete-INSTR/ ‘with a machete’
weso ar /house LOC/ ‘in the house’
mundu evi /village ALL/ ‘to the village’

Possessors

Mairasi possessor prefixes:[3]^:546

	sg	pl
1	o-	ee-
2	ne-	e-
3	na-	ne-

Examples of inalienable possessors:

ee-rovo /1PL.POSS-hand/ ‘our hands’
na-iambi /3SG.POSS-skin/ ‘his skin’

Directionals

Mairasi has two directional suffixes, which are only used with movement verbs.[3]^:549

-aʔi ‘up, inland’
-ari ‘down, seaward’

Examples of directional suffixes in use:

o-is-aʔi /1SG.SBJ-stand-up/ ‘I stand up’
o-fon-ari /1SG.SBJ-sit-down/ ‘I sit down’

Animacy

Animacy is marked by the adjective modifier n-, as exemplified by the contrast in the following two noun phrases.[3]^:546

fariri Ø-avwer

word INAN-big

‘a big word’

fariri n-avwer

word ANIM-big

‘a long-winded person’

Vowel changes can modify the number of animate nouns:[3]^:546

uratu n-avwer

fish ANIM-big.SG

‘a big fish’

uratu n-evwer

fish ANIM-big.PL

‘big fishes’

gollark: I see.

gollark: If you want to fly better, you can buy a GTech™ totally-non-backdoored™ neural interface kit™.

gollark: Yes, send me the "8KST".

gollark: This is ridiculous.

gollark: It's probably making the hover boots hopefully.

References

Mairasi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Mairasi". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
Foley, William A. (2018). "The languages of Northwest New Guinea". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 433–568. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.

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[e18-1] Mairasi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)

[Glottolog-2] Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Mairasi". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

[Foley-NWNG-3] Foley, William A. (2018). "The languages of Northwest New Guinea". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 433–568. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.