Kuman (also Chimbu or Simbu) is a language of

Chimbu Province Chimbu, more frequently spelled Simbu, is a province in the Highlands Region of Papua New Guinea. The province has an area of 6,112 km2 and a population of 376,473 (2011 census). The capital of the province is Kundiawa. Mount Wilhelm, the ta ...

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 ...

. In 1994, it was estimated that 80,000 people spoke Kuman, 10,000 of them

monolingual Monoglottism (Greek μόνος ''monos'', "alone, solitary", + γλῶττα , "tongue, language") or, more commonly, monolingualism or unilingualism, is the condition of being able to speak only a single language, as opposed to multilingualism. ...

s; in the 2000 census, 115,000 were reported, with few monolinguals. ''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensiv ...

'' also reported 70,000 second language speakers in 2021.

Phonology

Like other

Chimbu languages Chimbu can refer to * the Simbu Province (formerly Chimbu) of Papua New Guinea * Kuman language (New Guinea), also known as Simbu or Chimbu * , also known as Simbu or Kuman * Chimbu River * Chimbu Airport in Kundiawa, Papua New Guinea. {{Disambig ...

, Kuman has rather unusual

lateral consonant A lateral is a consonant in which the airstream proceeds along one or both of the sides of the tongue, but it is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. An example of a lateral consonant is the English ''L'', as in ''Larr ...

s. Besides the typical , it has a "laterally released velar affricate" which is voiced medially and voiceless finally (and does not occur initially). Based on related languages, this is presumably , allophonically (see

voiceless velar lateral fricative The voiceless velar lateral fricative is a rare speech sound. As one element of an affricate, it is found for example in Zulu and Xhosa (see velar lateral ejective affricate). However, a simple fricative has only been reported from a few lang ...

Consonants

* Voiced plosives are usually prenasal, but may fluctuate in word-initial position as ordinary voiced stops . * Voiceless stops are always aspirated in word-initial position. * only occurs word-medially and word-finally. In word-final position it is heard as a trill . * can be pronounced as , in word-initial position. * can be pronounced as before front vowels . * is heard as voiceless or fricative , when preceding a consonant. It is heard as a voiced fricative when between vowels. It is also heard as an alveolar fricative before an /s/.

Vowels

* /a/ can be heard as either central or back in free variation. * /e/ is pronounced as as a first vowel in a word. * /o/ is pronounced in its lax form as before /ɾ/.

Grammar

Kuman is an SOV language.

Vocabulary

The following basic vocabulary words are from Salisbury (1956) and Trefry (1969), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database: :

References

External links

Kuman phonology and sample text
*

Kaipuleohone Kaipuleohone is a digital ethnographic archive that houses audio and visual files, photographs, as well as hundreds of textual material such as notes, dictionaries, and transcriptions relating to small and endangered languages. The archive is stored ...

has a Chimbu-Wahgi collection from Andrea L. Berez tha
includes Kuman language materials
* A number of collections in

Paradisec The Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC) is a cross-institutional project that supports work on endangered languages and cultures of the Pacific and the region around Australia. They digitise reel- ...

includ
Kuman materials
Languages of Simbu Province Languages of Eastern Highlands Province Chimbu–Wahgi languages Subject–object–verb languages {{papuan-lang-stub