Mufian (Muhian, Muhiang), or Southern Arapesh, is an Arapesh language ( Torricelli) of

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 ...

. Dialects are ''Supari, Balif, Filifita (Ilahita), Iwam-Nagalemb, Nagipaem''; Filifita speakers are half the population, at 6,000 in 1999. It is spoken in 36 villages, most of which are located within Bumbita-Muhian Rural LLG,

East Sepik Province East Sepik is a province in Papua New Guinea. Its capital is Wewak. East Sepik has an estimated population of 433,481 people (2010 census) and is 43,426 km square in size. History Cherubim Dambui was appointed as East Sepik's first premier ...

. It is also spoken in Supari ward of Albiges-Mablep Rural LLG.

Phonology

/ʔʷ/ is a coarticulated

glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...

with

lip rounding Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve ...

that occurs only in final word positions.

Pronouns

Southern Arapesh pronouns are: :

Noun classes

There are 17 classes for count nouns in Mufian, plus two extra classes, i.e. proper names and place names. Noun classes are expressed in noun suffixes, adjective suffixes, and verb prefixes. Although Southern Arapesh has more than a dozen noun classes, only four noun classes are determined by semantics, while the other noun classes are determined phonologically using the final root segment (a feature typical of the Lower Sepik languages). The four semantically determined noun classes are: *class 16: male human referents *class 8: female human referents *class 5: human referents of unspecified sex (likely diminutive, since children are also included) *class 6: human referents of unspecified sex The membership of the other twelve classes is determined phonologically, by the final segment of the root, as in the Lower Sepik languages. Some examples of Mufian noun classes from Alungum (1978): There are a few irregularities in these noun classes."J. Alungum, R. J. Conrad, and J. Lukas (1978)
Some Muhiang Grammatical Notes
"

External links

* Paradisec has a collection of materials with Don Laycock
DL1
that includes Mufian materials

References

{{Languages of Papua New Guinea Arapesh languages Languages of East Sepik Province