Mairasi ( Faranyao and Kaniran) 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 ...

of the

Bomberai Peninsula Bomberai Peninsula ( id, Semenanjung Bomberai), otherwise known as the Bird's Beak Peninsula ( id, Semenanjung Paruh Burung), is located in the Western New Guinea region, opposite to and to the south of the Bird's Head Peninsula. To the west lies ...

of West Papua,

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 ...

. The Northeastern dialect may be a distinct language.

Distribution

Locations: *

Kaimana Regency Kaimana Regency is a regency in the south of West Papua province of Indonesia. It covers an area of 18,500 sq. km, and had a population of 46,249 at the 2010 Census and 62,256 at the 2020 Census. The administrative centre is the town of Kai ...

**Interior villages: Umbran, Jamna Fata, Matna, Tarwata, Sara, Kasira, Orai, Wangatnau, Faranyau, and Sarifan **Coastal villages: Sisir, Foroma Jaya, Warasi, Lobo, Lomira, Morona, Nanggwaromi, Omay (May may), and Warika *

Teluk Wondama Regency Teluk Wondama Regency or Wondama Bay Regency ( id, Kabupaten Teluk Wondama) is a regency of West Papua province of Indonesia. It covers a land area of 14,953.80 km2, and had a population of 26,321 at the 2010 Census and 41,644 at the 2020 C ...

**Naikere District villages: Sararti, Oya, Yabore, Wosimo, Undurara, and Inyora

Phonology

Pronouns

Mairasi possessor prefixes are: :

Morphology

Case markers

Noun phrase

case marker In linguistics, a marker is a free or bound morpheme that indicates the grammatical function of the marked word, phrase, or sentence. Most characteristically, markers occur as clitics or inflectional affixes. In analytic languages and aggluti ...

s in Mairasi: *instrumental suffix -''t'' *locative postposition ''ar'' *

allative In grammar, the allative case (; abbreviated ; from Latin ''allāt-'', ''afferre'' "to bring to") is a type of locative grammatical case. The term allative is generally used for the lative case in the majority of languages that do not make fine ...

postposition ''ev(i)'' Some examples:

Possessors

Mairasi possessor prefixes: : Examples of inalienable possessors:

Directionals

Mairasi has two directional suffixes, which are only used with movement verbs. *''-aʔi'' ‘up, inland’ *''-ari'' ‘down, seaward’ Examples of directional suffixes in use:

Animacy

Animacy Animacy (antonym: inanimacy) is a grammatical and semantic feature, existing in some languages, expressing how sentient or alive the referent of a noun is. Widely expressed, animacy is one of the most elementary principles in languages around ...

is marked by the adjective modifier ''n''-, as exemplified by the contrast in the following two noun phrases. Vowel changes can modify the number of animate nouns:

References

{{Languages of Indonesia Languages of western New Guinea Mairasi languages