lingvo.wikisort.org - Language

Tehit is a Papuan language of the Bird's Head Peninsula of New Guinea. Other spellings are Tahit, Tehid, and other names Kaibus, Teminabuan. Dialects are Tehit Jit, Mbol Fle, Saifi, Imyan, Sfa Riere, Fkar, Sawiat Salmeit.

Tehit
Kaibus
Native to	Indonesia
Region	Papua
Native speakers	10,000 (2000)[1] 500 monolinguals (2000?)[2]
Language family	West Papuan Bird's Head West Bird's Head Tehit
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kps
Glottolog	tehi1237
Tehit Show map of Western New Guinea Tehit Show map of Indonesia
Coordinates: 1.51°S 131.99°E / -1.51; 131.99

Subdivisions

Subgroups

Major Tehit ethnic subgroups:[3]

Locations of some Tehit subgroups:[3]

• Tehit Mlafle and Tehit Mlakya, in Teminabuan District: Kaibus, Werisar, Keyen, Boldon, Seribau, Srer, and Sria villages.
• Tehit Konda, in Konda District: Konda, Mnaelek, and Mbariat villages.
• Tehit Nakya, in Saifi District: Malaswat, Manggroholo, Sira, Kwowok, Komanggaret, Sayal, Kayabo, Botaen, Sisir, and Knaya villages.
• Tehit Imian, in Seremuk District: Gamaro, Tofot, Haha, Woloin, and Kakas villages.
• Tehit Nasfa, in Sawiyat District: Wenslolo, Wensnahan, Wensi villages.

Clans

Tehit clans:[3]

Morphology

Tehit has four grammatical genders, which are masculine, feminine, plural, and neuter. Examples:[4]

gender	suffix	examples
masculine	-w	ndla-w ‘husband’, sna-w ‘moon’, qliik-w ‘snake’
feminine	-m	-ene-m ‘mother’, tali-m ‘sun’, mbol-m ‘house’
plural	-y	sinas-y ‘small mosquito’, sinaq-y ‘gravel’, siray ‘salt’
neuter	zero	n/a

Gender prefixes in Tehit can not only be used to denote gender, but also size, wholeness, and the stability of appearances. Masculine gender is associated with small size, parts of wholes, and changing appearances, while feminine gender is associated with large size, wholeness, and stable appearances. Examples (from Flassy 1991: 10–12):

	feminine	masculine
wet ‘child’	wet-m child-3F wet-m child-3F ‘girl’	wet-w child-3M wet-w child-3M ‘boy’
e’ren ‘fish’	e’ren-m fish-3F e’ren-m fish-3F ‘big fish’	e’ren-w fish-3M e’ren-w fish-3M ‘small fish’
mbol ‘house’	mbol-y house-3PL mbol-y house-3PL ‘houses’	mbol-w house-3M mbol-w house-3M ‘small house’ / ‘houses’
sika ‘cat’	sika-w cat-3M sika-w cat-3M ‘male cat’ / ‘cats’

References

Further reading

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