Isirawa 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 by about two thousand people on the north coast of
Papua province
Papua is a province of Indonesia, comprising the northern coast of Western New Guinea together with island groups in Cenderawasih Bay to the west. It roughly follows the borders of Papuan customary region of Tabi Saireri. It is bordered by ...
,
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 ...
. It's a local trade language, and use is vigorous.
Stephen Wurm
Stephen Adolphe Wurm ( hu, Wurm István Adolf, ; 19 August 1922 – 24 October 2001) was a Hungarian-born Australian linguist.
Early life
Wurm was born in Budapest, the second child to the German-speaking Adolphe Wurm and the Hungarian- ...
(1975) linked it to the
Kwerba languages
The half dozen Kwerba languages form a small language family spoken in Jayapura Regency of Indonesian West Papua.
Languages
The languages are,
* Bagusa
* Kauwera (Kaowerawedj)
* Kwerba (Sasawa, Air Mati)
* Kwerba Mamberamo (Nopuk)
* Trimuris
...
within the
Trans–New Guinea family, and it does share about 20% of its vocabulary with neighboring Kwerba languages. However, based on its pronouns,
Malcolm Ross (2005) felt he could not substantiate such a link, and left it as a
language isolate
Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The nu ...
. The pronouns are not, however, dissimilar from those of
Orya–Tor, which Ross links to Kwerba, and Donahue (2002) accept it as a Greater Kwerba language.
Locations
In
Sarmi Regency
Sarmi Regency is one of the regencies (''kabupaten'') in Papua Province of Indonesia. It was formed from the western districts then within Jayapura Regency with effect from 12 November 2002. It covers an area of 18,034.0 km2, and had a population ...
, Isirawa is spoken in Amsira, Arabais, Arsania, Kamenawari, Mararena, Martewar, Nisero, Nuerawar, Perkami, Siaratesa, Waim, Wari, and Webro villages.
Grammar
In Isirawa, the feminine gender is associated with big objects, and masculine with small objects; the opposite association is found in
Tayap
Tayap is a small village of Cameroon located in the Centre Region, between the country's capital Yaounde (86 km) and Douala (164 km). The village of Tayap is part of the Ngog-Mapubi district of the Nyong-et-Kéllé department.
Situa ...
and the
Sepik languages
The Sepik or Sepik River languages are a family of some 50 Papuan languages spoken in the Sepik river basin of northern Papua New Guinea, proposed by Donald Laycock in 1965 in a somewhat more limited form than presented here. They tend to have ...
, which classify large objects as masculine rather than feminine.
Pronouns
The Isirawa pronouns are,
:
Ross's reconstructed Orya–Tor pronouns are *ai 'I', *ne 'we' (inclusive), *emei 'thou', *em 'you'.
Isirawa pronoun paradigm as given in Foley (2018):
:
References
*Clouse, Duane, Mark Donohue and Felix Ma. 2002. "Survey report of the north coast of Irian Jaya
Languages of western New Guinea
Unclassified languages of New Guinea
Kwerbic languages
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