The Busa language, also known as Odiai (Uriai), is spoken in three hamlets of northwestern

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 were 244 speakers at the time of the 2000 census. One of the hamlets where Busa is spoken is Busa () in Rawei ward,

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 ...

. Busa speakers are in extensive trade and cultural contact with Yadë, a distantly related language spoken in six villages to the north of the Busa area.

Classification

Busa may be one of the

Kwomtari languages Kwomtari is the eponymous language of the Kwomtari languages, Kwomtari family of Papua New Guinea. Spencer (2008) is a short grammar of Kwomtari. The language has an SOV constituent order and nominative–accusative alignment. Both subjects and ...

. Foley (2018) classifies Busa as a language isolate (meaning unclassified), but does not exclude the possibility that it may have a distant relationship with the

Torricelli languages The Torricelli languages are a family of about fifty languages of the northern Papua New Guinea coast, spoken by about 80,000 people. They are named after the Torricelli Mountains. The most populous and best known Torricelli language is Arapesh ...

Pronouns

Pronouns are: :

Basic vocabulary

Busa basic vocabulary listed in Foley (2018): : The following basic vocabulary words are from Conrad and Dye (1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database: :

Affixes

Busa subject agreement affixes are: : The Busa possessive suffix -''ni'' is also found in proto-

Sepik The Sepik () is the longest river on the island of New Guinea, and the third largest in Oceania by discharge volume after the Fly River, Fly and Mamberamo River, Mamberamo. The majority of the river flows through the Papua New Guinea (PNG) provi ...

as the dative suffix *ni, as well as in Ama, a Left May language.

References

External links

Odiai language word list at TransNewGuinea.org
{{language families Unclassified languages of New Guinea Languages of Sandaun Province Senu River languages