Mairasi ( Faranyao and Kaniran) is a
Papuan language of the
Bomberai Peninsula
Bomberai Peninsula ( id, Semenanjung Bomberai), otherwise known as the Bird's Beak Peninsula ( id, Semenanjung Paruh Burung), is located in the Western New Guinea region, opposite to and to the south of the Bird's Head Peninsula. To the west lies ...
of
West Papua,
Indonesia.
The Northeastern dialect may be a distinct language.
Distribution
Locations:
*
Kaimana Regency
Kaimana Regency is a regency in the south of West Papua province of Indonesia. It covers an area of 18,500 sq. km, and had a population of 46,249 at the 2010 Census and 62,256 at the 2020 Census. The administrative centre is the town of Kaima ...
**Interior villages: Umbran, Jamna Fata, Matna, Tarwata, Sara, Kasira, Orai, Wangatnau, Faranyau, and Sarifan
**Coastal villages: Sisir, Foroma Jaya, Warasi, Lobo, Lomira, Morona, Nanggwaromi, Omay (May may), and Warika
*
Teluk Wondama Regency
Teluk Wondama Regency or Wondama Bay Regency ( id, Kabupaten Teluk Wondama) is a Regencies of Indonesia, regency of West Papua (province), West Papua province of Indonesia. It covers a land area of 14,953.80 km2, and had a population of 26,321 ...
**Naikere District villages: Sararti, Oya, Yabore, Wosimo, Undurara, and Inyora
Phonology
Pronouns
Mairasi possessor prefixes are:
:
Morphology
Case markers
Noun phrase
case marker
In linguistics, a marker is a free or bound morpheme that indicates the grammatical function of the marked word, phrase, or sentence. Most characteristically, markers occur as clitics or inflectional affixes. In analytic languages and agglutinat ...
s in Mairasi:
*instrumental suffix -''t''
*locative postposition ''ar''
*
allative postposition ''ev(i)''
Some examples:
Possessors
Mairasi possessor prefixes:
:
Examples of
inalienable possessors:
Directionals
Mairasi has two directional suffixes, which are only used with movement verbs.
*''-aʔi'' ‘up, inland’
*''-ari'' ‘down, seaward’
Examples of directional suffixes in use:
Animacy
Animacy
Animacy (antonym: inanimacy) is a grammatical and semantic feature, existing in some languages, expressing how sentient or alive the referent of a noun is. Widely expressed, animacy is one of the most elementary principles in languages around th ...
is marked by the adjective modifier ''n''-, as exemplified by the contrast in the following two noun phrases.
Vowel changes can modify the number of animate nouns:
References
{{Languages of Indonesia
Languages of western New Guinea
Mairasi languages