Mairasi language

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

Mairasi
Native toWest Papua, Indonesia
RegionBomberai Peninsula
Native speakers
3,300 (1996)[1]
Mairasi
  • Mairasi
Language codes
ISO 639-3zrs
Glottolognucl1594[2]

The Northeastern dialect may be a distinct language.

Phonology

Consonants:[3]

tʔ
bdʤɡ
ɸs
β
mn
r
w

Vowels:[3]

iu
eo
a

Pronouns

Mairasi possessor prefixes are:[3]

sgpl
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

sgpl
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: Or invent "standard lateness units" relative to some sort of poll for local day/night cycles.
gollark: So we just need to standardize "quite late", "very late", and "highly late" or something.
gollark: That is only descriptive *relative to local expectations of lateness*.
gollark: Or "it is late here".
gollark: So just say "it's night".

References
  1. Mairasi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Mairasi". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  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.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.