Keuw (Keu, Kehu) is an unclassified language of New Guinea.
| Keuw | |
|---|---|
| Kehu | |
| Native to | Papua |
| Region | Wapoga River, in the foothills inland from Cenderawasih Bay: Wapoga District, Nabire Regency, Papua province |
Native speakers | 200 (2007)[1] |
Language family | Lakes Plain?
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | khh |
| Glottolog | kehu1238 |
| ELP | Kehu |
Keuw is spoken in a swampy lowland region along the Poronai River in Keuw village (kampung) of Wapoga District, Nabire Regency, Papua province, Indonesia. According to oral folklore, the Keuw were originally from Woisaru, and then moved to Sanawado, which may be locations in Wapoga District.[2]
Mark Donohue (2007) said that Kehu is "probably a Geelvink Bay language, but no one knows enough about those languages, systematically, to say this with confidence for [any of them] beyond Barapasi, T(ar)unggare and Bauzi."[3]
Timothy Usher (2018) classifies it as a Lakes Plain language, closest to Awera and Rasawa–Saponi. According to Foley, based on some lexical and phonological similarities, Keuw may possibly share a deep relationship with the Lakes Plain languages.[4] Palmer (2018) treats Keuw as a language isolate.[5]
Phonology of Keuw from Kamholz (2012), quoted in Foley (2018):[6][4]
Keuw has ten consonants.
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | |
| voiced | b | d | ɡ | ||
| Fricative | s | ||||
| Liquid | l | ||||
| Semivowel | w | j | |||
Keuw has five vowels.
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u |
| Mid | e | o |
| Open | a | |
Keuw has contrastive tone. Some minimal pairs demonstrating phonemic tonal contrasts:
Keuw has SOV word order, as exemplified by the sentence below. The morphemic suffixes remain unglossed.[4]
kómúul-yò
boar-?
yúmséet-yò
cassava-?
núu-nô
eat-?
kómúul-yò yúmséet-yò núu-nô
boar-? cassava-? eat-?
‘The boar ate the cassava.’
Basic vocabulary of Keuw from Kamholz (2012), quoted in Foley (2018):[6][4]
| gloss | Keuw |
|---|---|
| ‘bird’ | páupǝn |
| ‘blood’ | kpíi |
| ‘bone’ | ntyéns |
| ‘breast’ | túulí |
| ‘ear’ | téemé |
| ‘eat’ | núu |
| ‘egg’ | bléemí |
| ‘eye’ | mlúul |
| ‘fire’ | núup |
| ‘go’ | páwì |
| ‘ground’ | píi |
| ‘hair’ | plíikd |
| ‘head’ | kpúunt |
| ‘leg’ | páud |
| ‘louse (body)’ | máa |
| ‘louse (head)’ | bréen |
| ‘man’ | méeli |
| ‘moon’ | dyúutǝn |
| ‘one’ | bíisìp |
| ‘path, road’ | ngkéempúkə |
| ‘see’ | líyè, tíyè, kúntáb |
| ‘sky’ | tpáapí |
| ‘stone’ | tóotí |
| ‘sun’ | tandən |
| ‘tooth’ | mée |
| ‘tree’ | kúd |
| ‘two’ | páid |
| ‘water’ | yél |
| ‘woman’ | úun |
The following basic vocabulary words are from the Trans-New Guinea database:[7][6]
| gloss | Keuw |
|---|---|
| head | kpúunt-yô |
| ear | téemé-yô |
| eye | mlúul-yô |
| nose | klókəә̀n-yô |
| tooth | mée-yô |
| tongue | áalì-yò |
| pig | kómúul-yò |
| egg | bléemí-yò |
| blood | kpíi-yò |
| bone | ntyéns-yô |
| skin | mpáakəә́t-yô |
| breast | túulí-yò |
| tree | kúd-yô |
| sky | tpáapí-yò |
| sun | táadəә́n-yô |
| moon | dyúutəә́n-yò |
| water | yél-yò |
| fire | núup-yò; óopí-yò |
| stone | tóotí-yò |
| road, path | ŋkéempúkəә̀-yô |
| eat | kéep-yô; núu-nô |
| one | bíisìp-yò |
| two | páid-yô |
Papuan language families (Palmer 2018 classification) | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trans-New Guinea subgroups |
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| Eastern Nusantara families and isolates |
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| Bird's Head Peninsula families and isolates |
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| Northern Western New Guinea families and isolates | |||||||||||
| Central Western New Guinea families and isolates |
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| Sepik-Ramu basin families and isolates |
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| Gulf of Papua and southern New Guinea families and isolates | |||||||||||
| Bismarck Archipelago and Solomon Islands families and isolates | |||||||||||
| Rossel Island isolate |
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| Proposed groupings |
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| Proto-language |
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