Irarutu, Irahutu, or Kasira, is an Austronesian language of most of the interior of the

Bomberai Peninsula Bomberai Peninsula ( id, Semenanjung Bomberai), otherwise known as the Bird's Beak Peninsula ( id, Semenanjung Paruh Burung), is located in the Western New Guinea region, opposite to and to the south of the Bird's Head Peninsula. To the west lies ...

of north-western New Guinea in

Teluk Bintuni Regency Teluk Bintuni Regency (or Bintuni Bay Regency) is a regency of West Papua Province of Indonesia. It covers an area of 18,637 km2, comprising administrative districts on three sides of Bintuni Bay, a gulf that separates the Bird's Head Peninsula ...

. The name “Irarutu” comes from the language itself, where “ira” conjoins with “ru” to create “their voice”. When put together with “tu”, which on its own means “true”, the meaning of the name becomes “Their true voice” or “The people’s true language”. Kuri is very close lexically, but has not been formally classified. Other than this, Irarutu is quite divergent among the

South Halmahera–West New Guinea languages The South Halmahera–West New Guinea (SHWNG) languages are a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, found in the islands and along the shores of the Halmahera Sea in the Indonesian province of North Maluku and of Cenderawasih Bay in the pro ...

. Previously, Irarutu was considered to belong to the South Halmahera subgroup of Austronesian languages, but more recently, Grimes and Edwards place Irarutu within the Kei-Tanimbar languages.Charles Grimes & Owen Edwards (in process) ''Wallacean subgroups: unravelling the prehistory and classification of the Austronesian languages of eastern Indonesia and Timor-Leste
Summary presentation at the 15th International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics
There are seven variations found within the language: Nabi, Babo, Kasuri, Fruata, South-Arguni, East-Arguni, North-Arguni.

Distribution

Irarutu is spoken on the Bomberai Peninsula of Indonesia. Specifically, it is spoken in the following locations: *

Kaimana Regency Kaimana Regency is a regency in the south of West Papua province of Indonesia. It covers an area of 18,500 sq. km, and had a population of 46,249 at the 2010 Census and 62,256 at the 2020 Census. The administrative centre is the town of Kaima ...

**Arguni District: Minggir, Aru, Kafuryai, Warmenu, Egarwara, Warua, Tugunawa, Rafa, Fiduma, Rauna, Sumun, Wanggita, Ukiara, Warwarsi, Bovuer, Mahua, Jawera, Rofada, Waromi, Tanusan, Urisa, Mandiwa, Werafuta, Nagura, and Seraran villages *

**Babo District: Irarutu 3, Nusei, Kasira, Amutu, Modan, and Kanaisi villages **Aroba District: Wame village **Farfurwar District

Phonology

Consonants

Tyron (1995) gives the following consonants: /p, t, c, k, b, d, ɟ, g, are all stops with /p, t, c, k/ being voiceless and /b, d, ɟ, g/ being voiced. All stop consonants can be placed in any position (beginning, middle, or end) with the exception of /c/ which cannot be placed in the ending position. Voiced stops /b, d, ɟ, g/ are mainly heard as prenasalized ��b, ⁿd, ᶮɟ, ᵑɡin the Fruata dialect. /f, s, h/ are all voiceless fricatives. /f/ is found in all 3 positions and is sometimes pronounced as a voiced by Native Irarutu speakers, and is mainly heard as a bilabial fricative �in the East Arguni dialect. /s/ is also found in all 3 positions but is never voiced. /h/ may be a recent addition to the language. /h/ is only found in initial and middle positions. /m, n/ are both voiced nasals. Both consonants are found in all 3 positions. /ɾ/ is found in most Irarutu dialects, but is sometimes switched out with

Vowels

Tyron (1995) gives the following vowels: Seven types of vowels are found in Irarutu, /a, e, ɪ, i, ʏ, o, u/. The vowels can then be formed in two different ways, one being monophthongs and the other being diphthongs. Monophthongs are a single sounding vowel while diphthongs are a combination of two separate vowels. All 7 vowels can be used in monophthong form but diphthong is restricted to only a few combinations.

Grammar

Irarutu follows the "Subject, Verb, Object" (SVO) format in word order. Adjectives such as "big" or a numbered value come after the noun, but for lineage-related matters the initial ancestor comes before the descendant.

Nouns

Nouns are words that can be placed in the “Subject” or “Object” portions of a sentence and can be modified for possessive relations. There are 3 functions of noun phrases: semantic function, pragmatic function, and grammatical function. In Irarutu, the grammatical function for nouns and pronouns do not differ for unique situations.

Possessive noun phrase

For possessive noun phrase there are usually no prefixes, suffixes, or any other alterations made to the noun of interest. The only cases where changes to the word are made are for body parts, names, and one's child.

Verbs

Both transitive and intransitive verbs are found in the Irarutu language. These verbs are conjoined with prefixed marks to show who is creating/causing the action. Up to three unique individuals can be indicated using these marks. Sounds within the verb can change if the verb stem begins with "t, ɪ, b, m, or s.

Verb function

There are three different types of prefixes relating the person who is creating the action. “a-“ refers to 1st person, “m-“ for 2nd and “n-“ for 3rd. “a-“ is used for 1st person cases but holds many rules along with it. “m-“ is seen in almost all cases for a 2nd person sentence and is sometimes accompanied by an inflection. “n-“ is present with a verb root in 3rd person and also tends to use inflection in the prefix.

Adjectives

Adjectives can be used to alter nouns or clauses and in most cases come after the statement it is altering. In Irarutu there is also a subclass of adjectives that differentiate the level of magnitude on which the adjective affects the subject/object. There are both clause-level and phrase-level adjectives, each of which affects the topic at hand differently. Nouns with multiple adjectives are indeed possible, but a bit uncommon. Adverbs exist but are often hard to point out in Irarutu sentence structure. Sometimes an entire phrase will be used to modify a verb or adjective. To make the meaning of a sentence clear, specific verbs, which can only be modified by certain adverbs, are used to show what part of the sentence is modifying what. The sequence and placement of the adverb also helps identify which part of the claim it is modifying.

References

Bibliography

* * {{Austronesian languages Languages of western New Guinea