// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhy learn Wiru? It's a language that draws you in.
| 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] |
| 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 | |
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 Kerr's work with the community produced a Wiru Bible translation and several unpublished dictionary manuscripts,[3] as well as Kerr's Master's thesis on the structure of Wiru verbs.[4]
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.
Evolution
[edit source]Wiru reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are:[5]
- 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-
Phonology
[edit source]Consonants
[edit source]| Labial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | ||
| prenasal | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᵑɡ | |||
| Liquid | (ɾ) | ɭ | ||||
| Approximant | w | j | ||||
- /p, t, k/ can be heard as aspirated [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ] in word-initial position and can also be heard with slight friction and voicing, in word-medial positions.
- /t/ can be heard as [d] when preceded by /i/ and followed by /a/ or /o/. It is heard as [ɾ] in all other intervocalic environments.[6]
Vowels
[edit source]| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
Stress
[edit source]Content words in Wiru feature stress on the initial syllable. Stressed syllables are longer, while unstressed syllables feature vowel reduction and lenition of the onset consonant.[7]
- /kákà/ → [ˈkʰáːɣə̀] ('banana'), in which the phoneme /k/ is realized as an aspirated stop in the stressed syllable and as an unaspirated fricative in the unstressed syllable, and the phoneme /a/ is elongated in the stressed syllable and realized as a schwa in the unstressed syllable.
Because Wiru uses lexical and grammatical tone, stress is not marked through pitch changes.[7]
Pronouns
[edit source]Trans–New Guinea–like pronouns are no 1sg (< *na) and ki-wi 2pl, ki-ta 2du (< *ki).
Syntax
[edit source]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
'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
'The people who own red cars live there.'
[Kenbra
Canberra
namolo
first
no-k-o]
come-PST-1PL
ko
story
ou.
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...
'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.
Vocabulary
[edit source]The following basic vocabulary words are from Franklin (1973,[9] 1975),[10] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:[11]
| 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 |
References
[edit source]- ↑ Wiru at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ↑ New Guinea World, Tua River[dead link]
- ↑ Kerr, Harland (13 March 2014). "Witumo Wituda Database". Retrieved 2022-02-21.
- ↑ Kerr, Harland (1967). A preliminary statement of Witu grammar: The syntactic role and structure of the verb (PDF) (MA). University of Hawaiʻi.
- ↑ Pawley, Andrew; Hammarström, Harald (2018). "The Trans New Guinea family". 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. 21–196. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
- ↑ Kerr, Harland B. (1967). A preliminary statement of Witu grammar: the syntactic role and structure of the verb. University of Hawai'i at Mānoa.
- 1 2 McPherson, Laura; Daniels, Don; Hendy, Caroline (6 December 2021). Lexical and grammatical tone in Wiru (PDF). 1st International Conference on Tone and Intonation (TAI). Sonderborg, Denmark. Retrieved 29 July 2026.
- ↑ Hendy, Caroline; Daniels, Don (2021). "The Wiru Noun-Modifying Clause Construction". Oceanic Linguistics. 60 (1): 72–102. doi:10.1353/ol.2021.0002. S2CID 236779036.
- ↑ Franklin, K.J. "Other Language Groups in the Gulf District and Adjacent Areas". In Franklin, K. editor, The linguistic situation in the Gulf District and adjacent areas, Papua New Guinea. C-26:261-278. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1973. doi:10.15144/PL-C26.261
- ↑ Franklin K.J. 1975. Comments on Proto-Engan. In S.A. Wurm, Ed. New Guinea Area Languages and Language Study: Papuan languages and the New Guinea linguistic scene. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, pp. 263-275.
- ↑ Greenhill, Simon (2016). "TransNewGuinea.org - database of the languages of New Guinea". Retrieved 2020-11-05.
Further reading
[edit source]- "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
[edit source]- Timothy Usher, New Guinea World, Witu
- Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart Recordings - Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart Recordings From the Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart Photographs and Audiorecordings. MSS 477. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.