lingvo.wikisort.org - Language

Wiru or Witu is the language spoken by the Wiru people of Ialibu-Pangia District of the Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. The language has been described by Harland Kerr, a missionary who lived in the Wiru community for many years. Kerr's work with the community produced a Wiru bible translation and several unpublished dictionary manuscripts,[3] as well as Kerr's Master's thesis on the structure of Wiru verbs.[4]

Wiru
Witu
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Ialibu-Pangia District, Southern Highlands Province
Ethnicity	Wiru
Native speakers	(15,300 cited 1967, repeated 1981)[1]
Language family	Papuan Gulf ? Teberan–Pawaian[2] Wiru
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	wiu
Glottolog	wiru1244
ELP	Wiru
Map: The Wiru language of New Guinea   The Wiru language   Trans–New Guinea languages   Other Papuan languages   Austronesian languages   Uninhabited

There are a considerable number of resemblances with the Engan languages, suggesting Wiru might be a member of that family, but language contact has not been ruled out as the reason. Usher classifies it with the Teberan languages.

Pronouns

Trans–New Guinea–like pronouns are no 1sg (< *na) and ki-wi 2pl, ki-ta 2du (< *ki).

Vocabulary

The following basic vocabulary words are from Franklin (1973,[5] 1975),[6] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:[7]

gloss	Wiru
head	tobou
hair	pine; píne
ear	kabidi
eye	lene
nose	timini
tooth	kime
tongue	keke; keké
leg	kawa
louse	nomo; nomò
dog	tue
pig	kaì
bird	ini; inì
egg	mu̧
blood	kamate
bone	tono
skin	kepene
breast	adu
tree	yomo; yomò
man	ali
woman	atoa; atòa
sun	lou; loú
moon	tokene
water	ue; uè
fire	toe
stone	kue; kué
name	ibini; ibíni
eat	nakò; one ne nako
one	odene
two	takuta; ta kutà

Syntax

Wiru has a general noun-modifying clause construction.[8] In this construction, a noun can be modified by a clause that immediately precedes it. The noun may, but need not, correspond to an argument of the modifying clause. Such constructions can be used to express a wide range of semantic relationships between clause and noun. The follow examples all use the same noun-modifying clause construction:

The noun-modifying clause construction imposes a falling tone on the head noun. That is, no matter what the lexical tone of the noun that is being modified is, it takes on a high-low tone pattern when it is modified in a noun-modifying clause construction.

Evolution

Wiru reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are:[9]

• ibi(ni) ‘name’ < *imbi
• nomo ‘louse’ < *niman
• laga ‘ashes’ < *la(ŋg,k)a
• tokene ‘moon’ < *takVn[V]
• mane ‘instructions, incantations’ < *mana
• keda ‘heavy’ < *ke(nd,n)a
• mo- ‘negative prefix’ < *ma-

References

Further reading

• "Outside and Inside Meanings: Non-Verbal and Verbal Modalities of Agonistic Communication the Wiru of Papua New Guinea" in Man and Culture in Oceania, Vol. 15

External links

• Timothy Usher, New Guinea World, Witu

На других языках

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- [en] Wiru language

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[fr] Wiru

Le wiru est une langue papoue parlée en Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée, dans la province des hautes-Terres méridionales.

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