Bulaka River Languages
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The Bulaka River languages are a pair of closely related
Papuan languages The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands in Indonesia, Solomon Islands, and East Timor. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply ...
, Yelmek and Maklew, on the Bulaka River in Indonesian
South Papua South Papua, officially the South Papua Province (), is an Indonesian Provinces of Indonesia, province located in the southern portion of Western New Guinea, Papua, following the borders of the Papuan customary region of Anim Ha. Formally establ ...
. They are ethnically Yab (Jab); their speech is ''Yabga (Jabga)''.


Languages

Yelmek is spoken west of
Merauke Regency Merauke Regency is a Regencies of Indonesia, regency in the far south of the Indonesian province of South Papua. It covers an area of 45,013.35 km2, and had a population of 195,716 at the 2010 CensusBiro Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 2011. and 2 ...
, between the
Digul River The Digul River () is a major river in South Papua province, Indonesia, on the island of New Guinea. It is the fourth longest river in New Guinea after Sepik, Mamberamo, and Fly. With a total length of and a drainage basin of . Course The rive ...
and Mbian River, (from north to south) in the villages of Wanam, Bibikem, Woboyo, and Dodalim. Maklew is spoken in Welbuti village. The former two villages are located in Ilwayab district, and the latter three in Tubang district.


Classification

The two languages are transparently related. Ross (2005) tentatively included them in the proposed Trans-Fly – Bulaka River family, but Usher, who reconstructs that family, does not connect Bulaka River to any other language family.


Proto-language


Phonology

Usher (2014) reconstructs the consonant inventory as follows. Although the modern inventories of Yelmek and Maklew are nearly identical, they lack a one-to-one correspondence. Maklew in particular has been heavily influenced by Marind, and participates in a number of sound changes that occurred in that language. Usher posits: :*j for Yelmek j ~ Maklew s (→ in the Jab dialect of Yelmek; also found in loans from Marind /j/, which in some dialects is ʲ :*w for Yelmek w ~ Maklew h (also found in loans from Marind /w/, which in some dialects is ʷ :*ɣ for Yelmek ŋ ~ Maklew h (→ in the Jab dialect of Yelmek; Makelew /h/ also found in loans from Marind /ɣ/, which in the central dialects becomes and, in loan words, mostly from Marind, :*s for Yelmek t ~ Maklew s (→ sis Jab). In addition, there is a set of correspondences between alveolars in Yelmek and velars in Maklew (n~ŋ, t~k, d~g). Usher transcribes these as a series of palatal consonants (*ɲ *c *ɟ), but this is merely a typographic convenience. The phonetic forms are not easily recoverable, but most instances (8 out of 10) are followed by *e, suggesting that there was a vocal component. Usher suggests that *ɲ *c *ɟ might actually have been *niV *tiV *diV or *ŋiV *kiV *giV, none of which occur in the reconstructions despite the high frequency of the sequence *iV otherwise. The expected sequences *itV and *ikV also do not occur, so it's possible that *ɲ *c *ɟ reflect all three of these series, rather than a fourth place of articulation. : : The reconstruction of *ə is not firm, at least partly because the transcribed data is often unreliable. There are vowel sequences of *iV and *uV. These might have been reconstructed as **jV and **wV, with no vowel sequences in the proto-language, but that analysis would require changing *w and *j in the consonant table above to **β and **ʝ, distinct from **w and **j, resulting in a larger set of consonants and an odd inventory of fricatives.


Pronouns

Usher (2020) reconstructs the pronouns as: :


Lexicon

Proto-Bulaka River lexical reconstructions by Usher (2014) are:Usher, Timothy. 2014.
Bulaka River Consonants
. ''
Journal of Language Relationship The ''Journal of Language Relationship'' (abbreviated ''JLR''; Russian: Вопросы языкового родства) is a quarterly academic journal published in Russia and the United States. It focuses on historical linguistics, with many ar ...
'', vol. 12, no. 1, 2015, pp. 31-50.
:


References


External links

* Timothy Usher, New Guinea World
Proto-Bulaka River
{{language families Language families Papuan languages Languages of Western New Guinea