Mufian (Muhian, Muhiang), or Southern Arapesh, is an

Arapesh language The Arapesh languages are several closely related Torricelli languages of the 32,000 Arapesh people of Papua New Guinea. They are spoken in eastern Sandaun Province and northern East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. The Arapesh languages are a ...

( 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 Bumbuita/Muhiang Rural LLG is a local-level government (LLG) of East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. The Muhian language and Bumbita language, which are both Torricelli languages belonging to the Arapesh The Arapesh languages are several c ...

, East Sepik Province. 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 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 Lower Sepik a.k.a. Nor–Pondo languages are a small language family of East Sepik Province in northern Papua New Guinea. They were identified as a family by K Laumann in 1951 under the name Nor–Pondo, and included in Donald Laycock's now-d ...

). 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

. 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