Korafe is a

Papuan language 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 a ...

spoken in

Oro Province Oro Province, formerly (and officially still) Northern Province, is a coastal Provinces of Papua New Guinea, province in the Southern Region, Papua New Guinea, Southern Region of Papua New Guinea. The provincial capital is Popondetta. The provinc ...

, in the "tail" 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 ...

. It is part of the Binanderean family of the Trans–New Guinea phylum of languages. Korafe or could also be called Kailikaili, Kaire, Korafe, Korafi, Korape, and Kwarafe is a language spoken in the Oro Province more specifically in the Tufi District, and Cape Nelson Headlands. Korafe has been heavily influenced by

Oceanic languages The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages. The area occupied by speakers of these languages includes Polynesia, as well as much of Melanesia and Micronesia. Though covering a vast area, Oceanic languages ...

.Bradshaw, Joel (2017). Evidence of contact between Binanderean and Oceanic languages. ''Oceanic Linguistics'' 56:395–414.

Speakers

For the people that lived of the Korafe language lived with three main principles: # Self-sustaining economy # Responsibilities and such go beyond one generation and can be passed down to one's children and so on and so forth # Belief in magic powers as well as a spirit world that are involved in a good well being for the community The Korafe people are a people that live in a mainly tribal manner as they wear very outlandish headgear as well as many other types of jewelry not commonly found anywhere else. The people were rich in culture and that can be seen within the complexity in the Korafe Language.

Phonology

Consonants

The orthography is written in angular brackets where it differs from the IPA.

Stress

* Stress on syllables comes on different syllables depending on the amount of syllables * The accent mark also helps to show the location of said syllable that is being stressed ** The first syllable is stressed when the word itself has 2 syllables *** Example: gháka ‘canoe’ jáinjain ‘chirp of a cricket’ ** The second syllable is stressed when the word itself has more than 2 syllables *** Example: genémbo ‘man’, gegénembo ‘men’ , tatárigho ‘echo’, ufóngufongu ‘iguana’ ** Also the first syllable is stressed when it uses the syllable pattern

Orthography

Grammar

The Korafe language has primarily SOV or Subject-Object-Verb word order. An example of the use of Subject-Object-Verb word order is shown below:

Pronouns

Interrogatives

Stems and Verbs

For stem verbs I the structure of that verb would be said root word followed by -e, -i, or -u. Stem II verbs are normally somewhat close to Stem I verbs but with a few changes whether it be a vowel shift, reduplication etc. Normally, removes one of the vowels which are most likely -u, or -i Verbs follow

serial verb construction The serial verb construction, also known as (verb) serialization or verb stacking, is a syntactic phenomenon in which two or more verbs or verb phrases are strung together in a single clause. It is a common feature of many African, Asian and Ne ...

, or basically using more than 1 verb next to each other in a clause.

Non-Finite Verb Non-finite verbs, are verb forms that do not show tense, person, or number. They include: # Infinitives (e.g., to go, to see) - They often function as nouns or the base form of a verb # Gerunds (e.g., going, seeing) - These act as nouns but are ...
Forms

= Positive Deverbals

= When creating a positive

deverbal Deverbal nouns are nouns that are derived from verbs or verb phrases. Formation Hausa Verbal nouns and deverbal nouns are distinct syntactic word classes. Functionally, deverbal nouns operate as autonomous common nouns, while verbal nouns re ...

it is a root word followed by the suffix -ari.

= Negative Deverbals

= Negative versions of Positive Deverbals are the same structurally but just has a different suffix which for negatives is -ae

Verb Formation

In Korafe only one heavy syllable is allowed (vv in the Rhyme) Almost all imperfective verbs will use the -ere rules

-ere replacement rules

# When the verb is a stem II verb and also follows any of the following order V, CV, VCV, CVCV, VNCV, CVNCV, then the -ere will be put right before the stem word 2. Verb is stem two but have longer configurations such as VCVCV, CVCVCV, VNCVCV, CYNCVCV. In this case the -ere rule applies by having the root word followed by -ere.

Nominal and Verb Combinations

Some phrases and expressions can be made with the use nominals and verbs together.

The
Epenthetic In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the first syllable ('' prothesis''), the last syllable ('' paragoge''), or between two syllabic sounds in a word. The opposite process in whi ...
Insertion Rules

The epenthetic rules are used in order to avoid changing the meaning of words that would be changed from suffixes.

Epenthetic r-insertion (
imperfective The imperfective (abbreviated , , or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a ...
)

For r-insertion it is normally used between the stem II verb and the -uru

= r-Insertion for one syllable (Ci or Cu stems)

= For this case an r is inserted between the stem II verb and the suffix -arira (will)

Nouns

Noun Phrases A noun phrase – or NP or nominal (phrase) – is a phrase that usually has a noun or pronoun as its head, and has the same grammatical functions as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently ...

References

* Farr, C. J. (1998). The interface between syntax and discourse in Korafe, a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. * The Sounds and Colors of a Papua New Guinean Sing-sing – Wild Junket Adventure Travel Blog. (2015, August 21). Retrieved from https://www.wildjunket.com/papua-new-guinea-sing-sing/

External links

*
Korafe-Yegha Swadesh List
* {{Languages of Papua New Guinea Languages of Oro Province Greater Binanderean languages