lingvo.wikisort.org - Language

Kilmeri, or bo apulyo is a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea near the border with Indonesian Papua. It is not being learned by children.

Kilmeri
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Sandaun Province
Ethnicity	2,800 (2004)[1]
Native speakers	2,000 (2004)[1]
Language family	Border Bewani Range Poal River Kilmeri
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kih
Glottolog	kilm1241
ELP	Kilmeri
Coordinates: 2.916313°S 141.298028°E / -2.916313; 141.298028 (Ossima)

Kilmeri is spoken around Ossima ward (2.916313°S 141.298028°E / -2.916313; 141.298028 (Ossima)) in Bewani-Wutung Onei Rural LLG, Sandaun Province.[2][3]

Speakers of Kilmeri refer to their own language as bo apulyo, meaning sound in the middle.[4]

Dialects

Dialects are:[5][6][4]

• Western Kilmeri dialect (spoken in western villages)
  • Elau
  • Osol
  • Kilipau
  • Kiliwes
  • Isi
  • I
  • Isi II
  • Sosi
  • Ilup
• Eastern Kilmeri dialect (spoken in eastern villages and hamlets)
  • Ossima
  • Isi Daru
  • Akos
  • Awol
  • Airu
  • Asue
  • Omoi
  • Omula

The two major dialect groupings have an estimated cognate percentage of 82% based on lexicostatistics.[5]

Phonology

Kilmeri distinguishes 18 consonants, 12 of which are phonemic.[4]

Consonants

	bilabial	labiodental	alveolar	palatal	velar	glottal
Plosives
voiced prenasalised	b		d		⌈g⌉
prenasalised with trilled release	ᵐʙ
voiceless	p				k	⌈ʔ⌉
labialised	(pʷ̜)
Nasals	m		n
Rhotic trills			r
Fricatives	(β / ɸ)	⌈f⌉	s
Laterals			l
Approximants		ʋ		j

The sounds in parenthesis are possible allophones of the bilabial trill. [β] can be intervocalical, [ɸ] can be the final sound, and [pʷ̜] can be syllable-initial. The sounds in half brackets occur extremely rarely and can likely be attributed to loan words. [4]

The exceedingly rare bilabial trill /ʙ/ is found in the areal-related Kwomtari and Sko languages, but not in other Border languages.[7] It likely developed from a prenasalized bilabial stop followed by a high back rounded vowel, hence why [mbu] occurs only in ten words.

Kilmeri has eight vowels, all of which are always short. [4]

Vowels

	(near-) front	central	(near-) back
high	i		u
near-high	ɪ		ʊ
mid	ɛ		ɔ
near-low	æ
low		a

The near-high and near-low vowels are especially rare.[4] Thus, Kilmeri was believed to have seven vowels[7] until a small selection of words, such as /bi/ (pig) and /bI/ (hole) show a clear distinction between /i/ and /I/.[4]

The main syllable structure is CV with two preferred syllables. [4]

Orthography

The phonetic inventory easily translates into Latin letters. The near-low vowel uses ae and the near-high vowels use diacritics. Literate Kilmeri speakers much preferred the symbol p for the bilabial trill, but pp was selected to indicate two different phonemes.[4]

Phoneme	Grapheme
/b/	b
/d/	d
/k/	k
/l/	l
/m/	m
/n/	n
/p/	p
/ʙ/	pp
/r/	r
/s/	s
/ʋ/	w
/j/	y
/a/	a
/æ/	ae
/ɛ/	e
/i/	i
/I/	î
/ɔ/	o
/u/	u
/ʊ/	û

Pronouns

Kilmeri has eleven personal pronouns without gender distinction. [7]

Personal pronouns

	singular	dual	plural
1incl	ko	dedukoyo	nuko
1excl		koyo	uke
2	de	deyo	ine
3	ki ~ ke	kiyo	iki

The dual forms end with the locative suffix -yo and is derived from the singular. The inclusive dual is often substituted with the inclusive plural, especially in narrative stories.[4]

Verbs

Kilmeri verb forms can express complex modality. Examples:[7]

de-le	PROB-go	‘will probably go’
lam < le-m	go-POT	‘might go’
lou < le-ou	go-FRUST	‘go in vain’
lap < le-p	go-IMP	‘go!’
klam < k-le-m	NEG.IMP-go-NEG.IMP	‘don’t go!’
loipap < le-ipe-p	go-first-IMP	‘go first, and then…’

Circumfixes can also be applied to verbs in Kilmeri.

Number agreement in Kilmeri is absolutive rather than accusative.[7]

In Kilmeri, intransitive verbs, as well as the two transitive verbs ‘eat’ and ‘throw down to’, agree with subjects in number. This pattern is also present in Amanab. These verbs are:[7]

gloss	singular	plural
‘eat’	ni	ile
‘throw down to’	pakʊne	pakʊpi
‘come’	pule	pulupi
‘die’	sui	supuli
‘go’	le	mole
‘sit’	nake	mape
‘sleep’	nui	sapi
‘speak’	mui	molive

However, number marking for transitive verbs, except for ‘eat’ and ‘throw down to’, refers to the number of the object, rather than the subject.[7]

gloss	singular	plural
‘carry’	wili	moli
‘carry hanging’	lali	laluli
‘cook’	si	sepi
‘cut’	suke	sukeli
‘dig’	rari	rararpi
‘erect’	newe	newaupi
‘fetch someone’	lakive	leki
‘fill’	norive	nororpi
‘harvest’	lapiye	lapapi
‘mark’	lopi	lopapi
‘sharpen’	merive	mererpi
‘take out’	pulive	puloli
‘tear’	pike	pikeki

References

На других языках

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- [en] Kilmeri language

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[fr] Kilmeri

Le kilmeri est une langue papoue parlée en Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée, dans la province de Sepik occidental, au Nord des monts Bewani[2].

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