The Yalë language, also known as Nagatman, is spoken in northwestern Papua New Guinea. It may be related to the Kwomtari languages, but Palmer (2018) classifies it as a language isolate.[2]
Yalë | |
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Nagatman | |
Native to | Papua New Guinea |
Region | Sandaun Province |
Native speakers | (600 cited 1991)[1] |
Language family | Senu River or language isolate
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Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | nce |
Glottolog | yale1246 |
ELP | Yalë |
Coordinates: 3.744917°S 141.471593°E / -3.744917; 141.471593 (Nagatiman) |
Map all coordinates using: OpenStreetMap |
Download coordinates as: KML |
There were 600 speakers in 1991 and 30 monolinguals at an unrecorded date.[1] Yalë is spoken in Nagatiman (3.744917°S 141.471593°E / -3.744917; 141.471593 (Nagatiman)) and several other villages of Green River Rural LLG in Sandaun Province.[3][4] Foley (2018) reports a total of six villages.[5]
Yalë is in extensive trade and contact with Busa, a likely language isolate spoken just to the south. Yalë has complex verbal inflection and SOV word order.[5]
Pronouns are:[5]
sg | pl | |
---|---|---|
1 | bo | se ~ sebo |
2 | ju | so ~ sobo |
3 | bu |
Verbal conjugation affixes are:[5]
Most nouns are not pluralized, and only nouns with human or animate reference or with high local salience may be pluralized using the suffix -rɛ ~ -re:[5]
Other plural nouns are irregular:[5]
The following basic vocabulary words are from Conrad and Dye (1975),[6] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:[7]
gloss | Yadë |
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head | ʌsu |
hair | ʌsʌǏahuᵽa |
ear | ąhuǏuʔ |
eye | na:ba |
nose | yɛlu |
tongue | aǏižiʔ |
louse | mibaʔ |
dog | kaliʔ |
pig | gǏɛǏiʔ |
bird | pʋlɛʔ |
egg | kah |
blood | wi:nuʔ |
bone | ɛlɛ:b̶u |
skin | žib̶uʔ |
breast | ma:ba |
tree | ti: |
woman | mɩsɛʔ |
water | tuʔ |
fire | ahuz̨iʔ |
stone | anɩziʔ |
road, path | ařʌgɛʔ |
eat | hiɛǏɛ |
one | žuwaʔ |
two | teǏɛʔ |
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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