Tabo, also known as Waia (Waya), is a Papuan language of Western Province, Papua New Guinea, just north of the Fly River delta. The language has also been known as Hiwi and Hibaradai.[2]
Waia | |
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Tabo | |
Region | Western Province, Papua New Guinea |
Native speakers | 3,000 (2002)[1] |
Language family | Language isolate or Trans-Fly
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Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | knv |
Glottolog | tabo1241 |
ELP | Tabo |
![]() Map: The Waia language of New Guinea
The Waia language (south center)
Trans–New Guinea languages
Other Papuan languages
Austronesian languages
Uninhabited |
Map all coordinates using: OpenStreetMap |
Download coordinates as: KML |
Tabo means ‘word, mouth’ and is the name of the language, whereas Waia is the name of one of the ten villages where Tabo is spoken.[3]
Tabo is not close to other languages. Evans (2018) classifies it as a language isolate.[3] Usher (2020) includes it in the Trans-Fly family.[4] Part of the uncertainty is because many of the attested words of Tabo are loans from Gogodala or Kiwai, reducing the number of native Tabo words that can be used for comparison and thus making classification difficult.
In Gogodala Rural LLG, Western Province, Papua New Guinea, Tabo is spoken in:[5][6]
It is spoken by 3,500 people mainly in the southern part Bamu Rural LLG of Western Province.[3]
The phonemic inventory of Tabo is given below.[3]
The following basic vocabulary words are from Reesink (1976) and Wurm (1973), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:[7]
gloss | Tabo |
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head | wato |
hair | hinibó; hinibɔ |
ear | galo |
eye | ba ͥdi; baidi |
nose | dopo; dɔ:pɔ |
tooth | lalo; lolo |
tongue | mɛlpila; merapira |
leg | nato |
louse | tamani |
dog | gaha |
bird | hola; hola: |
egg | kikipo |
blood | hawi; haᵘwi |
bone | goha; goha: |
skin | tama |
breast | nono |
tree | ke'ha; kɛha |
man | dubu; tubu |
woman | kamena |
sun | kadepa; kadɛpa |
moon | manome; manomi |
water | bea |
fire | koe; kue: |
stone | -nadi; naki |
road, path | gabo |
name | mahiro; mahiřo |
eat | hɛna; nɛ:na |
one | kapia |
two | nete'ewa |
Papuan language families (Palmer 2018 classification) | |||||||||||
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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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Primary language families | |||||
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Africa |
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Eurasia (Europe and Asia) |
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New Guinea and the Pacific |
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Australia |
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North America |
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Mesoamerica |
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South America |
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Sign languages |
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See also |
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Languages of Papua New Guinea | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Major Indigenous languages |
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Other Papuan languages |
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Sign languages |