Duwet, also known as Guwot or Waing, is an aberrant member of the Busu subgroup of Lower Markham languages in

Morobe Province Morobe is a province on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. The provincial capital and largest city is Lae. The province covers 33,705 km2, with a population of 674,810 (2011 census), and since the division of Southern Highlands Province ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

. Duwet is spoken by about 400 people and appears to have been heavily influenced by its neighboring

Nabak language Nabak (also known as ''Wain'') is a Papuan language spoken by around 16,000 people in the Morobe Province located in the western Huon Peninsula of Papua New Guinea. Nabak follows the SOV typology. It uses Latin script The Latin script, also ...

(also called Wain) of the Papuan

Trans–New Guinea languages Trans–New Guinea (TNG) is an extensive Language family, family of Papuan languages spoken on the island of New Guinea and neighboring islands, a region corresponding to the country Papua New Guinea as well as Western New Guinea, parts of Indone ...

. It is spoken in the three villages of Lambaip, Lawasumbileng, and Ninggiet. Duwet is spoken in the three villages of Lambaip (), Lawasumbileng, and Ninggiet in Nabak Rural LLG.

Morphology

Pronouns and person markers

Subject prefixes

Numerals

Traditional Duwet numerals include only three basic forms: 'one', 'two', and 'hand (= five)'.

References

* Holzknecht, Susanne (2001). "Number and Person in the Duwet Language of Papua New Guinea." In Andrew Pawley, Malcolm Ross, and

Darrell Tryon Darrell T. Tryon (20 July 1942 – 15 May 2013) was a New Zealand-born linguist, academic, and specialist in Austronesian languages. Specifically, Tryon specialised in the study of the languages of the Pacific Islands, particularly Vanuatu, the ...

, eds., ''The Boy from Bundaberg: Studies in Melanesian Linguistics in Honour of Tom Dutton,'' 175-191. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. {{Languages of Papua New Guinea Markham languages Languages of Morobe Province Vulnerable languages