The Kuot language, or Panaras, is a
language isolate, the only non-
Austronesian language spoken on the island of
New Ireland,
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 ...
. Lindström (2002: 30) estimates that there are 1,500 fluent speakers of Kuot.
Perhaps due to the small speaker base, there are no significant dialects present within Kuot. It is spoken in 10 villages, including Panaras village () of
Sentral Niu Ailan Rural LLG in New Ireland Province.
Locations
Kuot is spoken in the following 10 villages. The first five villages are located eastern coast, and the last five on the western coast in
New Ireland.
[Lindström, Eva. 2002. ''Topics in the Grammar of Kuot''. Ph.D. dissertation, Stockholm University.] Geographical coordinates are also provided for each village.
*Kama ()
*Bol () (mixed with
Nalik speakers)
*Fanafiliuo
*Liedan ()
*Kabi ()
*Naiama ()
*Panaras ()
*Naliut ()
*Nakalakalap ()
*Patlangat ()
*Bimun ()
Combined, the two villages of Naliut and Nakalakalap are known as Neiruaran (). Most of the villages are located in
Sentral Niu Ailan Rural LLG, though some of the eastern villages, such as Kama and Bol, are located in
Tikana Rural LLG.
The Kuot variety described by Lindström (2002) is that of Bimun village.
Language contact
Lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
in some
Austronesian languages of
New Ireland, namely
Lamasong,
Madak
Madak was a blend of opium and tobacco used as a recreational drug in 16th- and 17th-century China. It emerged in southern coastal areas in the first half of the 17th century. In the last quarter of the 18th century madak was phased out by raw ...
,
Barok
Barok is considered one of the most popular komiks characters in the Philippines created by Filipino cartoonist Bert Sarile in 1973. It also means Sillano. A stone-age Philippine comic book character, Barok was described by Sarile as a lead chara ...
,
Nalik, and
Kara
Kara or KARA may refer to:
Geography Localities
* Kara, Chad, a sub-prefecture
* Kára, Hungary, a village
* Kara, Uttar Pradesh, India, a township
* Kara, Iran, a village in Lorestan Province
* Kara, Republic of Dagestan, a rural locality in Da ...
, may have diffused via influence from Kuot (Ross 1994: 566).
Status
Kuot is an
endangered language
An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead langu ...
and most children, if not all, grow up speaking
Tok Pisin
Tok Pisin (,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh ; Tok Pisin ), often referred to by English speakers as "New Guinea Pidgin" or simply Pidgin, is a creole language spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an ...
instead.
[Eva Lindström (November 12, 2002). "Kuot Language and Culture". Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University. Retrieved October 14, 2016. p. 102.]
Phonology
Consonants
Vowels
The vowels /i/ and /u/ tend to become glide-vowels in occurrence with other vowels. The length of the vowels is not making differences for the meaning of words. The appearance of /i/ and /u/ with other vowels can not be seen as
diphthong or a combination of vowel and glide-vowel. There are never more than three vowels per syllable. The combination of diphthong and vowel is also possible but they are pronounced in conditions of the syllable. Diphthongs are spoken like one sound.
Allophones
Morphophonemic Alternations
't' to 'r' Alternation
The phoneme in certain possessive markers, such as "''-tuaŋ''", "''-tuŋ''" and "''-tuo''" becomes when it comes after a stem ending in a vowel. Compare:
* ''ira-ruaŋ'' – my father
* ''luguan-tuaŋ'' – my house
* ''i'rama-ruo'' – my eye
* ''nebam-tuaŋ'' – my feather
Vowel Shortening
Where the third person singular masculine suffix "-oŋ" is used on a noun that ends with a vowel, this vowel is typically not pronounced. For instance, "''amaŋa-oŋ''" is pronounced , not .
Voicing Rule
When vowel-initial suffixes are added to stems that end in voiceless consonants, those consonants become voiced. For example:
* ''he splits it''
* ''he drinks''
* ''he prays''
The phoneme becomes , not .
* ''it comes out''
* ''her eyes''
Grammar
Kuot is the only Papuan language that has
VSO word order
VSO may refer to:
* VSO, an aircraft's stall speed in the landing configuration
* Valdosta Southern Railroad
* Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, a Canadian orchestra performing in Vancouver, British Columbia
* Variable Speed Oscillator - see Oscillati ...
, similar to
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
and
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
.
The
morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
* Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
* Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
of the language is primarily
agglutinative
In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative lang ...
. There are two grammatical genders, male and female, and distinction is made in the first person between singular, dual, and plural, as well as between exclusive and inclusive.
For instance, the sentence literally means 'my father eats sweet potato'. ''Parak-oŋ'' is a
continuous aspect
The continuous and progressive aspects (abbreviated and ) are grammatical aspects that express incomplete action ("to do") or state ("to be") in progress at a specific time: they are non-habitual, imperfective aspects.
In the grammars of many ...
of the verb meaning 'to eat', ''ira'' means 'father', ''-ruaŋ'' is a suffix used to indicate
inalienable possession
In linguistics, inalienable possession (abbreviated ) is a type of possession in which a noun is obligatorily possessed by its possessor. Nouns or nominal affixes in an inalienable possession relationship cannot exist independently or be "ali ...
('my father'), and ''kamin'' is a simple noun meaning '
sweet potato'.
Noun declensions
Kuot nouns can be singular, dual, or plural. Below are some noun declension paradigms in Kuot (from Stebbins, et al. (2018), based on Lindström 2002: 147–146):
:
Vocabulary
The following basic vocabulary words are from Lindström (2008), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:
:
See also
*
East Papuan languages
The East Papuan languages is a defunct proposal for a family of Papuan languages spoken on the islands to the east of New Guinea, including New Britain, New Ireland, Bougainville, Solomon Islands, and the Santa Cruz Islands. There is no eviden ...
References
External links
Kuot language word list at TransNewGuinea.orgKuot word list(Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuot Language
Agglutinative languages
East Papuan languages
Language isolates of New Guinea
Languages of New Ireland Province
Verb–subject–object languages
Vulnerable languages
Endangered Papuan languages
Endangered language isolates