Morori (Marori, Moaraeri, Moraori, Morari) is a moribund

Papuan language The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian and non-Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geogra ...

of the Kolopom branch of the Trans–New Guinea family. It is separated from the other Kolopom languages by the intrusive Marind family. All speakers use

Papuan Malay Papuan Malay or Irian Malay is a Malay-based creole language spoken in the Indonesian part of New Guinea. It emerged as a contact language among tribes in Indonesian New Guinea (now Papua, Central Papua, Highland Papua, South Papua, and We ...

or Indonesian as L2, and many know Marind. A dialect extinct in 1997, Menge, is remembered from ceremonial use. Marori is spoken in Kampung Wasur, which in 2010 had 413 people (98 families) total and 119 Marori people (52 Marori families).

Phonology

Marori has 22 consonants and 6 vowels, which are: ;Vowels: i, e, æ, a, o, u On the other hand, the majority of Trans-New Guinea languages usually have around 10–15 consonants.

Pronouns

Pronouns, but little else, connect it to TNG: :

Vocabulary

The following basic vocabulary words are from Voorhoeve (1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database: :

Evolution

Marori reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are: *''mam'' ‘breast’ < *amu *''mam'' ‘mother’ < *am(a,i) *''nemeŋk'' ‘louse’ < *niman *''sa'' ‘sand’ < *sa(ŋg,k)asiŋ *''ŋwar'' ‘bone’ < *kondaC

References

*Arka, I Wayan. 2012. Projecting morphology and agreement in Marori, an isolate of southern New Guinea. In Nicholas Evans and Marian Klamer (eds.), ''Melanesian Languages on the Edge of Asia: Challenges for the 21st Century'', 150-173. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

External links