Purari language

Purari (Namau) is a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea.

Not to be confused with Iaai language.
Purari
Native toPapua New Guinea
Regionnear the mouth of the Purari River in Gulf Province[1]
Native speakers
7,000 (2011)[2]
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3iar
Glottologpura1257[4]

Names

Purari is also known as Koriki, Evorra, I'ai, Maipua, and Namau. "Namau" is a colonial term which means "deaf (lit.), inattentive, or stupid (Williams 1924: 4)." Today people of the Purari Delta find this term offensive. F.E. Williams reports that the "[a]n interpreter suggests that by some misunderstanding the name had its origin in the despair of an early missionary, who, finding the natives turned a deaf ear to his teaching, dubbed them all 'Namau'." (Williams 1924: 4). Koriki, I'ai, and Maipua refer to self-defining groups that make up the six groups that today compose the people who speak Purari. Along with the Baroi (formerly known as the Evorra, which was the name of a village site), Kaimari and the Vaimuru, these groups speak mutually intelligible dialects of Purari.

The name Baimuru (after Baimuru Rural LLG) is given in Petterson (2019).[5]

Classification

Noting that the few similarities with the Eleman languages may be because of loanwords, Pawley and Hammarström (2018) leave it as unclassified rather than as part of Trans-New Guinea.[1]

Pronouns

Pronouns are 1sg nai, 2sg ni, 1pl enei. The first may resemble Trans–New Guinea *na, but Purari appears to be related to the Binanderean–Goilalan languages.[3]

Phonology

Unlike most other neighboring Papuan languages, Purari (Baimuru) is non-tonal.[5]

References
  1. Pawley, Andrew; Hammarström, Harald (2018). "The Trans New Guinea family". 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. 21–196. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
  2. Purari at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  3. New Guinea World, Oro – Wharton Range
  4. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Purari". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  5. Petterson, Robert. 2019. Interesting Features of Porome: An Isolate Language of PNG. Paper presented at the LSPNG 2019 Conference. 30pp.

Further reading
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