Berik 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 ...

spoken in eastern

Papua Papua most commonly refers to: * New Guinea, the world's second-largest island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean * Western New Guinea, the western half of the island of New Guinea, which is administered by Indonesia. ** Papua (province), an Indonesi ...

. Speakers are located in four village groups on the

Tor River The Tor River (Bahasa Indonesia: ''Sungai Tor'') is a river in Western New Guinea with a total length of . Sungai Torin Geonames.org (cc-by) post updated 2013-05-07; database downloaded 2015-11-27 See also * List of rivers of Western New Guinea ...

towards the northern coast of

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

n-controlled

Irian Jaya New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres ...

. US linguist

John McWhorter John Hamilton McWhorter V (; born October 6, 1965) is an American linguist with a specialty in creole languages, sociolects, and Black English. He is currently associate professor of linguistics at Columbia University, where he also teaches Amer ...

cited Berik as an example of a language which puts concepts "together in ways more fascinatingly different from English than most of us are aware".McWhorter, "No Tears for Dead Tongues" Illustrating this, in the phrase ''Kitobana'' (meaning " egives three large objects to a male in the sunlight"), affixes indicating time of day, object number, object size, and gender of recipient are added to the verb.

Locations

In Tor Atas District, Berik is spoken in Beu, Bora Bora, Dangken, Doronta, Kondirjan, Safrontani, Sewan, Somanente, Taminambor, Tenwer, Togonfo, and Waf villages.

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Berik has the common six vowel system (/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, and /u/ plus /ə/).Westrum, "A Grammatical Sketch of Berik," p. 137

Sample

* ''Angtaneʻ bosna Usafe je gatas tarnap ge nuin. Tesa ga belim taban, ga jes talebowel.'' * "There was once a person named Usafe who lived near the

sago Sago () is a starch extracted from the pith, or spongy core tissue, of various tropical palm stems, especially those of '' Metroxylon sagu''. It is a major staple food for the lowland peoples of New Guinea and the Maluku Islands, where it is ...

acreages. Whenever he finished cutting down a sago tree, he pounded it"Taken from Jones, "In Pursuit of Discourse Particles", p. 130

Notes

References

* * * * {{Tor–Kwerba languages Languages of western New Guinea Orya–Tor languages