Ram languages
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The Ram languages are a small group of 3 languages spoken in Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea. They are spoken directly to the northeast of the Yellow River languages and directly to the south of the Wapei languages, both of which are also Sepik groups. Ram is the word for 'man' in the languages that make up this group.
The languages are,[1]
They are classified among the Sepik languages of northern Papua New Guinea.
Awtuw is the best documented Ram language.
Pronouns
The pronouns Ross reconstructs for proto-Ram are:[2]
I *wan we two (*na-n) we *na-m thou *yɨ-n you two (*yɨ-n/*a-n) you *yɨ-m/*a-m he *ra (*atə-) they two (*ra-p, *atə-) they (*ra-m, *atə-m) she (*ta-i)
Vocabulary comparison
The following basic vocabulary words are from Laycock (1968)[3] and Foley (2005),[4] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database.[5]
The words cited constitute translation equivalents, whether they are cognate (e.g. nipia, nipikəm for “louse”) or not (e.g. nəpay, aukwə for “dog”).
gloss Awtuw Karawa Pouye head makəlak moulaka nouraka ear maːna; nane maklaka maroalaka eye new; nü noulaka nowar nose witil; wutil waklaka wolokə tooth pilak; piylake pilaka piyapa tongue lale; laːlə laləpi laləmu leg riiwe; riwe lalə lalə louse nin nipia nipikəm dog piːrən; piyren nəpay aukwə pig yaw bird yi awra yio egg paŋkə; wate waːtə warə blood aipi eipi aywi bone lake; lakər lakə lakə skin yai mouwil nəpyei breast muy; mwi məy muy tree tau; taw tau tau man rame; ramiyan yaŋkai lamo woman taləran telou tʔlum sun mæy; may may taliyə moon yelmek; yilmake yalma yalma water yiw; yüw you you fire tapo; tapwo tapo tapo stone til tidi tɨl name yenyiy eat ra one naydowo two yikir yikəramo yikən
Morphology
Awtuw (Feldman 1983[6]) and Pouye present many morphological commonalities: they share cognate prefixes in six out of eight prefixal slots, but on the other hand they present very little cognate material in their suffixal chain.[7]
Ram languages have a rich verbal morphology, which can encode unusual categories such as celerative -imya 'quickly', grammaticalized from the verb imya 'run' as in (1),[8] periodic tense and simulative.
References
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- ↑ Ram, New Guinea World
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- ↑ Laycock, Donald C. 1968. Languages of the Lumi Subdistrict (West Sepik District), New Guinea. Oceanic Linguistics, 7 (1): 36-66.
- ↑ Foley, W.A. "Linguistic prehistory in the Sepik-Ramu basin". In Pawley, A., Attenborough, R., Golson, J. and Hide, R. editors, Papuan Pasts: Cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. PL-572:109-144. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 2005.
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