Tehit is a
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
Bird's Head Peninsula
The Bird's Head Peninsula ( Indonesian: ''Kepala Burung'', nl, Vogelkop) or Doberai Peninsula (''Semenanjung Doberai''), is a large peninsula that makes up the northwest portion of the island of New Guinea, comprising the Indonesian provinces ...
of New Guinea. Other spellings are ''Tahit, Tehid,'' and other names ''Kaibus, Teminabuan''. Dialects are Tehit Jit, Mbol Fle, Saifi, Imyan, Sfa Riere, Fkar, Sawiat Salmeit.
Subdivisions
Subgroups
Major Tehit ethnic subgroups:
Locations of some Tehit subgroups:
*Tehit Mlafle and Tehit Mlakya, in Teminabuan District: Kaibus, Werisar, Keyen, Boldon, Seribau, Srer, and Sria villages.
*Tehit Konda, in Konda District: Konda, Mnaelek, and Mbariat villages.
*Tehit Nakya, in Saifi District: Malaswat, Manggroholo, Sira, Kwowok, Komanggaret, Sayal, Kayabo, Botaen, Sisir, and Knaya villages.
*Tehit Imian, in Seremuk District: Gamaro, Tofot, Haha, Woloin, and Kakas villages.
*Tehit Nasfa, in Sawiyat District: Wenslolo, Wensnahan, Wensi villages.
Clans
Tehit clans:
Morphology
Tehit has four
grammatical gender
In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all noun ...
s, which are masculine, feminine, plural, and neuter. Examples:
Gender prefixes in Tehit can not only be used to denote gender, but also size, wholeness, and the stability of appearances. Masculine gender is associated with small size, parts of wholes, and changing appearances, while feminine gender is associated with large size, wholeness, and stable appearances. Examples (from Flassy 1991: 10–12):
References
Further reading
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{{Languages of Indonesia
Languages of western New Guinea
West Bird's Head languages