Foi, also known as Foe or Mubi River, is one of the two
East Kutubuan languages of the
Trans-New Guinea family spoken along
Lake Kutubu
Lake Kutubu is the second-largest lake in Papua New Guinea,[Lake Kutubu](_blank)
at Ramsar site after Southern Highlands Province
Southern Highlands is a province in Papua New Guinea. Its provincial capital is the town of Mendi. According to Papua New Guinea's national 2011 census, the total population of Southern Highlands (after the separation of Hela Province) is 515,511 ...
of
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
.
[ Dialects of Foi are Ifigi, Kafa, Kutubu, Mubi. A ]Swadesh list
The Swadesh list ("Swadesh" is pronounced ) is a classic compilation of tentatively universal concepts for the purposes of lexicostatistics. Translations of the Swadesh list into a set of languages allow researchers to quantify the interrelatednes ...
for the Foi language was documented by The Rosetta Project in 2010. The estimated number of Foi speakers as of 2015 is between 6,000 and 8,000.
Grammar
Syntax
Foi is a subject–object–verb
Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to:
Philosophy
*'' Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing
**Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective con ...
language, similar to most languages in Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
.
Foe adopts the usage of focused objects as sentence-initial. In noun phrases, Foi follows the pattern of Noun + Quantifier and Adjective + Noun.
Adverbial phrases are marked postpositionally by clitics in Foi.
Foi also has a series of evidentials to mark the verbal aspect
In linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event, or state, as denoted by a verb, extends over time. Perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference to ...
of seen, unseen, deduced, possibility, and mental deduction.
Morphology
The subject or focus transitive in a sentence is marked with ''-mo'' as shown in example (1) below.Where the focus is on the person who is eating the sweet potato.
Lexical
Foi has separate words for today and yesterday, as well as two, three, four and five days prior and hence.
Pronouns
Singular, dual, and plural are distinguished in personal pronouns. In addition, Foe also marks clusivity
In linguistics, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between ''inclusive'' and ''exclusive'' first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called ''inclusive " we"'' and ''exclusive "we"''. Inclusive "we" specifically includes the addressee ...
for first-person pronouns.
It was not made clear if a reported minimal distinction in the first-person plural form between the inclusive ''jia'' and exclusive ''jija'' is real.
Phonology
Vowels
Foi features 5 vowels
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...
.
Consonants
The 16 consonants
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...
including the glottal stop used in Foi are:
Allophonic
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
variation of and is common.
The vowel /y/ was mentioned as a consonant by Franklin, suggesting that the research was phonetically noted in Americanist phonetic notation
Americanist phonetic notation, also known as the North American Phonetic Alphabet (NAPA), the Americanist Phonetic Alphabet or the American Phonetic Alphabet (APA), is a system of phonetic notation originally developed by European and American ...
. The table above has been amended according to the standards of International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...
.
Body-part counting system
Foi adopts the body-part counting system. This feature can also be found in approximately 60 Trans-New Guinea Languages such as Fasu
Fasu, also known as Namo Me, is one of the Kutubuan languages of New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwe ...
and Oksapmin
Oksapmin is a Trans–New Guinea language spoken in Oksapmin Rural LLG, Telefomin District, Sandaun, Papua New Guinea.
The two principal dialects are distinct enough to cause some problems with mutual intelligibility.
Oksapmin has dyadic kin ...
.
Counting typically begins by touching (and usually bending) the fingers of one hand, moves up the arm to the shoulders and neck, and in some systems, to other parts of the upper body or the head. A central point serves as the half-way point. Once this is reached, the counter continues, touching and bending the corresponding points on the other side until the fingers are reached.
Language status
According to '' Ethnologue'', the language status of is '5*', referring to the situation whereby the language is anticipated to be in vigorous use by all, based on the informed guess made by editorial team due to the lack of information. This status is based on Lewis and Smino's (2010) Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS).[
]
Further reading
*Rule, Murray. 1993. ''The Culture and Language of the Foe: The People of Lake Kutubu, Southern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea''. Merewether, New South Wales: Chevron Niugini.
References
External links
* Timothy Usher, New Guinea World
Foe
{{Languages of Papua New Guinea
Languages of Southern Highlands Province
East Kutubuan languages