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 Kerr's work with the community produced a Wiru bible translation and several unpublished dictionary manuscripts,[3] as well as Kerr's Master's thesis on the structure of Wiru verbs.[4]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 ?
|
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.
Trans–New Guinea–like pronouns are no 1sg (< *na) and ki-wi 2pl, ki-ta 2du (< *ki).
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 |
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:
[No
1sg
ka-k-u]
stay-prs-1sg
tono
mountain
tubea.
big
[No ka-k-u] tono tubea.
1sg stay-prs-1sg mountain big
'The mountain I am on top of is big.'
[Kia-nea
be.red-inf
karo
car
pi-k-i]
lie-prs-2/3pl
ail-aroa
man-woman
eida
there
piri-ki-ya.
lie-prs-2/3pl-hab
[Kia-nea karo pi-k-i] ail-aroa eida piri-ki-ya.
be.red-inf car lie-prs-2/3pl man-woman there lie-prs-2/3pl-hab
'The people who own red cars live there.'
[Kenbra
Canberra
namolo
first
no-k-o]
come-pst-1pl
ko
story
ou.
say.1sg.fut
[Kenbra namolo no-k-o] ko ou.
Canberra first come-pst-1pl story say.1sg.fut
'I'll tell the story about the first time we came to Canberra.'
[Toro
1pl
pea
all
skul
school
ke
loc
poa-rok-o]
go-opt-1pl
oi
time
no-ka-l-e...
come-pst-ds-2/3pl...
[Toro pea skul ke poa-rok-o] oi no-ka-l-e...
1pl all school loc go-opt-1pl time come-pst-ds-2/3pl...
'The time for all of us to go to school arrived...'
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.
Wiru reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are:[9]
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Trans-New Guinea subgroups |
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Rossel Island isolate |
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Proto-language |
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