The Karkar language, also known as Yuri, is the sole Eastern Pauwasi language of

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 ...

. There are about a thousand speakers along the

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

n border spoken in

Green River Rural LLG Green River Rural LLG is a local-level government (LLG) of Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea. It is located along the border with Keerom Regency, Papua Province and Pegunungan Bintang Regency, Highland Papua Province, in Indonesia Ind ...

Sandaun Province Sandaun Province (formerly West Sepik Province) is the northwesternmost mainland Provinces of Papua New Guinea, province of Papua New Guinea (also known as home of the sunset). It covers an area of 35,920 km2 (13868 m2) and has a population ...

Classification

Karkar-Yuri is not related to any other language in Papua New Guinea, and was therefore long thought to be a

language isolate A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...

. This is the position of Wurm (1983), Foley (1986), and Ross (2005). However, Timothy Usher noticed that it is transparently related to the

Pauwasi languages The Pauwasi languages are a likely family of Papuan languages, mostly in Indonesia. The subfamilies are at best only distantly related. The best described Pauwasi language is Karkar, across the border in Papua New Guinea. They are spoken around ...

across the border in Indonesia. Indeed, it may even form a

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

with the Eastern Pauwasi language Emem. This was foreshadowed in non-linguistic literature: a 1940 map shows the 'Enam' (Emem)–speaking area as including the Karkar territory in PNG, and the anthropologist Hanns Peter knew that the Karkar dialect continuum continued across the border into Emem territory.

Pauwasi cognates

Cognates between Karkar-Yuri and the Pauwasi family ( Tebi and Zorop languages) listed by Foley (2018): :

Dialects

Dialects are: *''North Central Yuri'' dialect, spoken in Yuri village (), Abaru ward,

*''Auia-Tarauwi'' dialect, spoken in Auia (Auiya) village (), Auiya 1 ward, Green River Rural LLG; and in Tarauwi (Trowari) village (), Kambriap ward, Green River Rural LLG *''Usari'' dialect, spoken in Usari village (), Auiya 1 ward, Green River Rural LLG

Phonology

The Karkar inventory is as follows.Dorothy Price, 1993. ''Organised Phonology Data: Karkar-Yuri Language UJ Green River – Sandaun Province'' Stress assignment is complex, but not phonemic within morphemes. Syllable structure is CVC, assuming nasal–plosive sequences are analyzed as prenasalized consonants.

Vowels

Karkar has a vowel inventory consisting of 11 vowels, which is considered very high for a Papuan language. There is also one

diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...

, ''ao'' . Vowels are written ''á'' , ''é'' , ''ae'' , ''o'' , ''ou'' , ''ɨ'' . Foley (2018) lists the 11 Karkar-Yuri vowels as: Some vowel height contrasts in Karkar-Yuri (Foley 2018): *''ki'' ‘yam’ *''kɨ'' ‘loosen’ *''ku'' ‘cut crosswise in half’ *''ke'' ‘edible nut’ *''kər'' ‘put in netbag’ *''ko'' ‘pig’ *''kæ'' ‘egg’ *''kʌʔr'' ‘swamp’ *''kɔ'' ‘again’ *''kar'' ‘speech’ *''kɒ'' ‘bird species’ There are four contrasting central vowel heights: *''kɨr'' ‘ red bird of paradise’ (''Paradisaea rubra'') *''kər'' ‘put in net bag’ *''kʌʔr'' ‘swamp’ *''kar'' ‘speech’

Consonants

The rhotics and glottal(ized) consonants do not appear initially in a word, and plain , the approximants, and the labialized consonants do not occur finally. Glottal stop only occurs finally. Final ''k'' spirantizes to . Plosives are voiced intervocalically. Intervocalic ''f'' and ''p'' neutralize to (apart from a few names, where is retained), and intervocalic ''k'' is voiced to . Phonemic labialized stops only occur in two words, ''apwar'' 'weeds, to weed' and ''ankwap'' 'another'. Otherwise consonants are labialized between a rounded and a front vowel, as in ''pok-ea'' 'going up'. In some words, the plosive of a final NC is silent unless suffixed: ''onomp'' 'my', ''onompono'' 'it's mine'. Prenasalized and labialized consonant contrasts: *''pi'' ‘bird tail’, ''pwi'' ‘enough’, ''mporan'' ‘tomorrow’ *''kar'' ‘voice’, ''ŋkɔte'' ‘over there’, ''kwar'' ‘ground’, ''ŋkwakwo'' ‘many kinds’ Plain and preglottalized sonorants contrasts, which only occur in word finals: *''ərər'' ‘sore’, ''ərəʔr'' ‘dig a hole’ *''pan'' ‘sago flour’, ''pəʔn'' ‘blunt’

Writing system

Pronouns

Pronouns listed by Ross (2005): Object forms take ''-an'', sometimes replacing the ''-o'': ''onan, amoan, man, yinan, námoan, yumoan.'' ''Mao'' is a demonstrative 'that one, those'; it contrasts with ''nko, nkoan'' 'the other one(s)'. Pronouns listed by Foley (2018) are: :

Vocabulary

Below are some basic vocabulary words in Karkar-Yuri. :

References

Works cited

* {{Languages of Papua New Guinea East Pauwasi languages Languages of Sandaun Province