Burmeso language
The Burmeso language – also known as Taurap – is spoken by some 300 people in Burmeso village along the mid Mamberamo River in Mamberamo Tengah subdistrict, Mamberamo Raya Regency, Papua province, Indonesia. It is surrounded by the Kwerba languages to the north, the Lakes Plain languages to the south, and the East Cenderawasih Bay languages to the west.
| Burmeso | |
|---|---|
| Taurap | |
| Region | Papua: Mamberamo Raya Regency, Mamberamo Tengah subdistrict, Burmeso village on the banks of the Middle Mamberamo River |
Native speakers | (250 cited 1998)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | bzu |
| Glottolog | burm1264 |
| ELP | Burmeso |
Burmeso forms a branch of Malcolm Ross's family of East Bird's Head – Sentani languages, but had been considered a language isolate by Stephen Wurm and William A. Foley.[2] The language has very distinct grammatical structure.[3] It has SOV word order.[2]
Phonology
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ||||
| Plosive | voiceless | t | k | |||
| voiced | b | d | ʤ | ɡ | ||
| Fricative | plain | ɸ | s | h | ||
| labial | hʷ | |||||
| Liquid | r | |||||
| Semivowel | w | j | ||||
Probable sound changes proposed by Foley (2018):
- *p > /ɸ/
- *tʃ > /s/
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u |
| Mid | e | o |
| Open | a | |
Nouns
Burmeso has six noun classes, which are:[2]
class semantic category class 1 male humans and associated things (contains half of all nouns) class 2 female humans and associated things class 3 body parts, insects, and lizards; material culture like axes and canoes, some foods; many natural phenomena class 4 mass nouns class 5 the two staple foods: sago tree and banana class 6 arrows, coconuts, and rice (traded items)
Burmeso nouns have three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter.[4] Singular concordial suffixes are:
- -ab ‘masculine’
- -an ‘feminine’
- -ora ‘neuter’
Examples of nominal concordial suffixes in usage:
koya
grandfather
bek-ab
good-M.SG
‘Grandfather is good.’
asia
grandmother
ek-an
good-F.SG
‘Grandmother is good.’
Basic vocabulary
Basic vocabulary of Burmeso (singular and plural nominal forms) listed in Foley (2018):[2]
Burmeso basic vocabulary gloss singular plural ‘bird’ tahabo tohwodo ‘blood’ sar sarido ‘bone’ hiwraf himaruro ‘breast’ mom momut ‘ear’ ara ‘eat’ bomo ‘egg’ kahup kohuro ‘eye’ anar anuro ‘fire’ hor horemir ‘give’ i ~ o ‘hair’ ihna ihiro ‘leg’ ago agoro ‘louse’ hati ‘man’ tamo dit ‘name’ ahau ‘one’ neisano ‘see’ ihi ‘stone’ ako hiruro ‘sun’ misiabo misiado ‘tooth’ arawar araruro ‘tree’ haman hememido ‘water’ baw bagaruro ‘woman’ nawak nudo
Many Burmeso nouns display irregular and suppletive plural forms.[2]
gloss singular plural ‘man’ tamo dit ‘banana’ mibo mirar ‘dog’ jamo juwdo ‘pig’ sibo sirudo ‘white cockatoo’ ayab ayot ‘house’ konor konodo ‘mat’ wira wirasamir
The following basic vocabulary words are from Voorhoeve (1975),[5] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:[6]
gloss Burmeso head agum hair ihiro eye jenar tooth araruro leg jago louse hati dog jamo pig sibo bird tohodo egg kohũp blood sar bone hiurap skin asi memiro tree haman man tamo sun misiavo water bau fire hor stone ako name ahau eat bomo one neisano two sor
References
- Burmeso at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- Foley, William A. (2018). "The languages of Northwest New Guinea". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 433–568. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
- Haspelmath, Martin. "Grammatical, Gender and Linguistic Complexity Volume I: General issues and Specific studies". langsci-press.org. Retrieved 2021-06-14.
- Foley, William A. (2018). "The morphosyntactic typology of Papuan languages". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 895–938. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
- Voorhoeve, C.L. Languages of Irian Jaya: Checklist. Preliminary classification, language maps, wordlists. B-31, iv + 133 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1975. doi:10.15144/PL-B31
- Greenhill, Simon (2016). "TransNewGuinea.org - database of the languages of New Guinea". Retrieved 2020-11-05.
Further reading
- Donohue, Mark. 2001. Animacy, class and gender in Burmeso. In: Pawley et al. (eds.), The Boy from Bundaberg: Studies in Melanesian Linguistics in Honour of Tom Dutton. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.97–117.
- Tasti, Markus and Mark Donohue. 1998. A Small Dictionary of Burmeso. Unpublished ms, University of Sydney.