Waris language

Waris or Walsa is a Papuan language of northern New Guinea.

Waris
Region	Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea; Waris District, Keerom Regency, Papua province, Indonesia
Native speakers	(undated figure of 4,000)[1]
Language family	Border Bewani Range Bapi River Waris
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	wrs
Glottolog	wari1266[2]
Coordinates: 3.294675°S 141.073027°E / -3.294675; 141.073027 (Wasengla Catholic Mission)

It is spoken by about 2,500 people around Wasengla (3.294675°S 141.073027°E / -3.294675; 141.073027 (Wasengla Catholic Mission)), Doponendi ward, Walsa Rural LLG, Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea, and also by about 1,500 across the border in Waris District, Keerom Regency in the Indonesian province of Papua.[3][4]

Phonology

Vowels

Monophthongs

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid	e
Mid		ə
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Near-open	æ
Open		a	ɒ

Diphthongs and triphthongs

	Vi	Vɛ	Vɑ	Vɒ	Vɔ	Vu
iV			iɑ
ɛV					ɛɔ	ɛu
ɑV	ɑi				ɑɔ
ɒV	ɒi
ɔV	ɔi		ɔɑ
uV	ui	uɛ	uɑ	uɒ

There are two triphthongs, /ɔɑi/ and /uɛu/.

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Stop	Voiceless	p	t		k
	Prenasalised	ᵐb	ⁿd		ᵑɡ
Nasal		m	n
Fricative	Voiceless		s		x
	Voiced	β
Trill			r
Lateral approximant			l
Approximant		w		j

Classifiers

Classifier prefixes in Waris attach to verbs, and are determined via the physical properties of the object noun phrase being referred to. Many of them have parallels with independent verb roots, which may well be where they had originated from. Examples include:[5]

wonda ka-m mwan-vra-ho-o

netbag 1-DAT CLF-get-BEN-IMP

‘Give me a netbag.’

nenas ka-m li-ra-ho-o

pineapple 1-DAT CLF-get-BEN-IMP

‘Give me a pineapple.’

nelus ka-m ninge-ra-ho-o

greens 1-DAT CLF-get-BEN-IMP

‘Give me some greens’

Many of these prefixes have lexical parallels with verb roots. The list of classifier prefixes is:[5]

classifier prefix	semantic category	verb root parallel
mwan-	soft pliable objects like net bags, skirts, bark mats
li-	fruits like pineapples, ears of corn or pandanus	le- ‘cut off oblong fruit’
vela-	objects found inside a container	vela- ‘remove’
put-	spherical objects, commonly fruits	puet- ‘pick fruit’
ninge-	food cooked and wrapped	ninge- ‘tie up’
vet-	food removed from fire without wrapping
lɛ-	leaf-like objects with no or soft stem
pola-	leaf-like objects with hard stem
ih-	grainy materials	ih- ‘remove grainy material from a container’
tuvv-	pieces cut from longer lengths	tuvva- ‘chop into lengths’
kov-	lengths of vine	kovva- ‘cut off’

References

1. Waris at Ethnologue (13th ed., 1996).
2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Waris". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
3. Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2019). "Papua New Guinea languages". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (22nd ed.). Dallas: SIL International.
4. United Nations in Papua New Guinea (2018). "Papua New Guinea Village Coordinates Lookup". Humanitarian Data Exchange. 1.31.9.
5. Foley, William A. (2018). "The Languages of the Sepik-Ramu Basin and Environs". 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. 197–432. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.

• Brown, Robert (1981). "Semantic aspects of some Waris predications". In Karl J. Franklin (ed.). Syntax and semantics in Papua New Guinea languages. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics. pp. 93–123.
• Brown, Robert (1988). "Waris case system and verb classification". Language and Linguistics in Melanesia. 19: 37–80.
• Brown, Robert; Honoratus Wai (1986). Diksenari: Walsana moa Pisinna moa Englisna moa (A short dictionary of the Walsa [Waris] language, Tok Pisin and English). Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics.