The Gogodala–Suki or Suki – Aramia River languages are a small
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics ...
of Papua New Guinea, spoken in the region of the Aramia River.
Languages
The languages are:
* Gogodala–Suki family
** ''
Suki'' language
** Gogodala (
Aramia River
The Aramia River is a river in southwestern Papua New Guinea. Aramia Riverin Geonames.org (cc-by) post updated 2013-05-07; database downloaded 2015-06-22
See also
*List of rivers of Papua New Guinea This is a list of rivers of Papua New Guinea.
...
) branch:
***
Gogodala
***
Ari
***
Waruna
Gogodala–Suki languages and respective demographic information listed by Evans (2018) are provided below.
:
Proto-language
Phonology
The reconstructed sound system is,
[Usher, Timothy. 2020]
Suki-Aramia River
''NewGuineaWorld''.
It is unclear if there were phonemes *w or *j distinct from *u and *i.
Pronouns
:
:
( and is zero.)
Lexicon
Proto-Suki–Aramia (i.e., Proto-Gogodala–Suki) lexical reconstructions by Usher (2020) are:
[
:
]
Vocabulary comparison
The following basic vocabulary words are from McElhanon & Voorhoeve (1970), Voorhoeve (1970), and Reesink (1976), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database.
The words cited constitute translation equivalents, whether they are cognate (e.g. ''atogi'', ''ato'', ''atu'' for “woman”) or not (e.g. ''mɛnəpila'', ''poso'', ''tamki'' for “tooth”).
:
Evolution
Gogodalic-Suki formed a branch of 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 ...
in the classification of Malcolm Ross. Possible reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are:
Gogodala language:
*''omo'' ‘breast’ < *amu
*''magata'' ‘mouth, jaw’ < *maŋgat *''mele-pila'' ‘tongue’ < *mele-mbilaŋ
*''imu'' ‘eye’ < *(ŋg,k)amu
*''mi'' ‘louse’ < *iman, *niman
*''kadepa'' ‘sun’ < *kand(a,e)pa
*''ila'' ‘tree, fire’ < *inda
*''na''- ‘eat’ < *na-
*''mana''- ‘sit, stay’ < *mVna-
Suki language
Suki is a Gogodala-Suki language spoken by about 3500 people several miles inland along the Fly River in southwestern Papua New Guinea.
Overview
Suki is primarily spoken in six villages of the Western Province: Gwaku (), Iwewi, Ewe, Gwibaku () ...
:
*''gigoa'' ‘cassowary
Cassowaries (; Biak: ''man suar'' ; ; Papuan: ''kasu weri'' ) are flightless birds of the genus ''Casuarius'', in the order Casuariiformes. They are classified as ratites, flightless birds without a keel on their sternum bones. Cassowaries a ...
’ < *ku(y)a
*''na''- ‘eat’ < *na-
References
*
Further reading
*Reesink, G.P.
Languages of the Aramia River Area
. In Reesink, G.P., Fleischmann, L., Turpeinen, S. and Lincoln, P.C. editors, ''Papers in New Guinea Linguistics'' No. 19. A-45:1-38. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1976.
External links
* Timothy Usher, New Guinea World
Proto–Suki – Aramia River
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gogodala-Suki languages
Papuan Gulf languages
Language families
Languages of Western Province (Papua New Guinea)