The Suabo or Inanwatan is a Papuan language of
West Papua. It is often classified in the
South Bird's Head language family, but may alternatively form an independent language family together with
Duriankere.
Overview
Inanwatan is primarily spoken in the village of
Inanwatan,
South Sorong Regency
South Sorong Regency ( id, Sorong Selatan ) is a regency of Southwest Papua province of Indonesia. It has an area of 7,789.92 km2, and had a population of 37,900 at the 2010 Census and 52,469 at the 2020 Census. The administrative centre is th ...
on the south coast of the
Bird's Head Peninsula
The Bird's Head Peninsula ( Indonesian: ''Kepala Burung'', nl, Vogelkop) or Doberai Peninsula (''Semenanjung Doberai''), is a large peninsula that makes up the northwest portion of the island of New Guinea, comprising the Indonesian provinces o ...
, but also in the village of
Seget,
Sorong Regency
Sorong Regency ( id, Kabupaten Sorong) is a regency of Southwest Papua province of Indonesia. It covers an area of 13,075.28 km2, and had a population of 70,619 at the 2010 Census, and 118,679 at the 2020 Census;Badan Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, ...
on the western tip of the peninsula, as well as by a community in the Jalan Ferry area of the city of
Sorong
Sorong is the largest city and the capital of the Indonesian province of Southwest Papua. The city is located on the western tip of the island of New Guinea with its only land borders being with Sorong Regency. It is the gateway to Indonesia's ...
.
Inanwatan is
endangered
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inva ...
: de Vries reports in 2004 that it was mostly people over 50 years of age who speak it fluently, and that the newest generation do not know it. According to his estimate, Inanwatan has 800 or fewer speakers, out of an ethnic population of about 3,000. The language is not a central component of the identity of the people, who identify more strongly with the smaller descent groups.
The language is also known under the names ''Bira'', ''Suabo'', ''Iagu'' and ''Mirabo'',
while the Inanwatan themselves most commonly refer to it as 'our language'. It is most closely related to the
Duriankari language.
Grammar
Like the
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...
, Inanwatan distinguishes masculine and feminine
grammatical gender
In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...
s. Inanwatan masculine nouns end in the
front vowel
A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would otherw ...
s -''i'' and -''e'', and feminine nouns end in non-front vowels -''u, -o, -a''.
Maybrat Maybrat may refer to the following topics from Southwest Papua, Indonesia:
* Maybrat language
* Maybrat people
* Maybrat Regency
Maybrat Regency is a regency of Southwest Papua Province of Indonesia. It has an area of , and had a population of 33, ...
, on the other hand, uses concord prefixes instead of suffixes to mark gender.
Inanwatan nouns usually have lexically determined gender, but some of the nouns allow for choice of gender via varying gender suffixes:
*''áruqe'' ‘blood of a male’
*''áruqo'' ‘blood of a female’
Inanwatan feminine forms are homophonous with plural forms, while masculine forms are distinct.
References
Bibliography
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{{South Bird's Head languages
Inanwatan–Duriankere languages