Porome, also known as Kibiri, 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 southern
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 ...
.
Classification
Porome was classified as a
language isolate
Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The num ...
by
Stephen Wurm
Stephen Adolphe Wurm ( hu, Wurm István Adolf, ; 19 August 1922 – 24 October 2001) was a Hungarian-born Australian linguist.
Early life
Wurm was born in Budapest, the second child to the German-speaking Adolphe Wurm and the Hungarian-sp ...
. Although
Malcolm Ross linked it to the
Kiwaian languages
The Kiwaian languages form a language family of New Guinea. They are a dialect cluster of half a dozen closely related languages. They are grammatically divergent from the Trans–New Guinea languages, and typically have singular, dual, trial, ...
, there is no evidence for a connection apart from the pronouns 1sg ''amo'' and 2sg ''do'' (cf. proto-Kiwaian *mo and *oro).
Distribution
There are over a thousand speakers in ''Babaguina'' (), ''Doibo'' (), ''Ero'' (), ''Paile'', ''Tipeowo'', and ''Wowa'' () villages in
West Kikori Rural LLG
West Kikori Rural LLG is a local-level government (LLG) of Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea. Kiwaian languages are spoken in the LLG.
Wards
*01. Haivaro
*02. Moka ( Minanibai language speakers)
*03. Komaio
*04. Masusu
*05. Gibu
*06. Ekeirau
*07. ...
and
East Kikori Rural LLG of
Gulf Province
A gulf is a large inlet from the ocean into the landmass, typically with a narrower opening than a bay, but that is not observable in all geographic areas so named. The term gulf was traditionally used for large highly-indented navigable bodie ...
, near the
Aird Hills and
Kikori River
The Kikori River is a major river in southern Papua New Guinea on the island of New Guinea. The river has a total length of and flows southeast into the Gulf of Papua, with its delta at the head of the gulf. The settlement of Kikori lies on the de ...
tributaries.
Phonology
Porome has 9 native consonants. /s/ occurs in loanwords. There are no
glottal consonant
Glottal consonants are consonants using the glottis as their primary articulation. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the glottal fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants ...
s.
[Petterson, Robert. 2019. ]
Interesting Features of Porome: An Isolate Language of PNG
'. Paper presented at the LSPNG 2019 Conference. 30pp.
:
There are five vowels, which are /a, e, i, o, u/.
Like the surrounding languages, Porome is a tonal language. It has 5 tones.
*High-level: ''kóí'' ‘cloth’
*Low-level: ''kòì'' ‘selfish’
*Rising: ''mèrí'' ‘road’
*Falling: ''mérì'' ‘
pandanus
''Pandanus'' is a genus of monocots with some 750 accepted species. They are palm-like, dioecious trees and shrubs native to the Old World tropics and subtropics. The greatest number of species are found in Madagascar and Malaysia. Common names ...
’
*Peaking: ''pàkúmì'' ‘feather’
Pronouns
The independent pronouns and subject suffixes to the verb are as follows:
:
Vocabulary
Selected Porome vocabulary from Petterson (2010):
[Petterson, Robert. 2010. ''Porome Daporo Avea Buka = Porome Language Picture Dictionary''. ]Ukarumpa
Ukarumpa is an intentional international community that is the main centre for SIL-PNG, located in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. It lies approximately by road from Kainantu in the Aiyura Valley. The population consists of ...
: SIL-PNG.
Body parts
:
Numerals
:
Village and society
:
Nature and environment
:
Plants
:
Animals
:
Comparison
Lexical comparison of Porome with neighboring languages:
:
Comparison of Porome's phonological inventory with those of neighboring languages:
:
References
*
{{Language families
Languages of Gulf Province
Papuan languages
Language isolates of New Guinea