Wamesa is an
Austronesian language of
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
n New Guinea, spoken across the neck of the
Doberai Peninsula or Bird's Head. There are currently 5,000–8,000 speakers. While it was historically used as a
lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
, it is currently considered to under-documented,
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 ...
. This means that fewer and fewer children have an active command of Wamesa. Instead,
Papuan Malay has become increasingly dominant in the area.
Name
The language is often called Wandamen in the literature; however, several speakers of the Windesi dialect have stated that 'Wandamen' and 'Wondama' refer to a dialect spoken around the Wondama Bay, studied by early missionaries and linguists from
SIL
SIL, Sil and sil may refer to:
Organizations
* Servis Industries Limited, Pakistan
* Smithsonian Institution Libraries
* SIL International, formerly Summer Institute of Linguistics
* Apex Silver Mines (former American Stock Exchange ticker symb ...
. They affirm that the language as a whole is called 'Wamesa', the dialects of which are Windesi, Bintuni, and Wandamen.
While Wamesa is spoken in
West Papua, Wamesa is not a
Papuan language
The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian and non-Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geogra ...
but rather a
SHWNG language.
Distribution
Locations:
*
Teluk Bintuni Regency
*
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 ...
**Windesi District: Windesi, Wamesa Tengah, Sombokoro, Wamesa Timur (Yopmeos), and Sandey villages
**Sougb Jaya District: Kaprus village
Phonology
Vowels
There are five contrastive vowels in Wamesa, as is typical of Austronesian languages.
These vowels are shown in the tables below.
Five
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
s appear in Wamesa: /au/, /ai/, /ei/, /oi/, and /ui/. Two-vowel and three-vowel clusters are also common in Wamesa. Almost all VV-clusters contain at least one
high vowel
A close vowel, also known as a high vowel (in U.S. terminology), is any in a class of vowel sounds used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of th ...
, and no two non-high vowels may be adjacent in larger clusters.
Consonants
There are 14 consonants in Wamesa, three of which are marginal (shown in parentheses in the table below).
Labial, coronal and velar places of articulation are contrastive in Wamesa. Coronal plosives sound relatively dental and may therefore be referred to as alveolar or alveo-dental until palatography can be executed to corroborate this.
Lateral /l/ and affricate /d͡ʒ/ appear only in loanwords, while all other sounds occur in native Wamesa words. The voiced velar fricative /g/ is a marginal phoneme because it only appears following /ŋ/.
The coronal tap and trill are in free variation, though the trill tends to occur more in word-initial or word-final position and in careful speech.
Place and manner contrasts as described above are supported by the minimal and near-minimal pairs found in the following table. Where possible, Wamesa words have been selected to show native (non-loan) phonemes in the environment /C
abial/sub>a_a/.
Phonotactics
Velar plosive only appears following and can only appear without a following if it is stem-initial.
Glide Phonotactics
There are no underlying glides in Wamesa, and are allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...
s of the vowel phonemes /i/ and /u/. This phonetic alternation is obligatory, permitted, or prohibited, depending upon the environment.
High vowels ''must'' become glides word-initially preceding a vowel or intervocalically. They ''may'' optionally become glides when adjacent to a single vowel. Finally, high vowels ''never'' become glides between two consonants, depriving the syllable of a nucleus. Nor do glides appear word-initially preceding a consonant or word-finally following a consonant, in which case the syllable structure would be at odds with the Sonority Sequencing Principle The Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP)Selkirk, E. (1984). On the major class features and syllable theory. In Aronoff & Oehrle (eds.) Language Sound Structure: Studies in Phonology. Cambridge: MIT Press. 107-136.Clements, G. N. (1990). The role of ...
.
Consonant cluster reduction
Complex onsets and codas are not permitted in Wamesa, and consonant clusters across syllable boundaries are usually reduced, such that /C1C2/ surfaces as 2">
2 However, there are three exceptions to this; clusters of
homorganic
In phonetics, a homorganic consonant (from ''homo-'' "same" and ''organ'' "(speech) organ") is a consonant sound that is articulated in the same place of articulation as another. For example, , and are homorganic consonants of one another since ...
nasals and voiced plosives are permitted to surface, as are consonant-
glide clusters that form through the morphophonological processes described above. Additionally, an underlying cluster of a consonant followed by /β/ /r/ or /k/ does not reduce but surfaces as a nasal followed by a homorganic voiced plosive, both of which derive their place features from underlying /C
2/.
Data from related languages of the
Yapen and
Biakic groups suggests that
historically
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
, /β/ /r/ and /k/ were *b *d and *g in Proto-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian. In this case, these phones would have formed a
natural class of voiced plosives to which
phonological rule
A phonological rule is a formal way of expressing a systematic phonological or morphophonological process or diachronic sound change in language. Phonological rules are commonly used in generative phonology as a notation to capture sound-related o ...
s could uniformly apply.
Stress
Wamesa is a bounded language with a 3-syllable, right-aligned stress window, meaning that stress alternates and
primary stress
In linguistics, and particularly phonology, stress or accent is the relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word or to a certain word in a phrase or sentence. That emphasis is typically caused by such properties as i ...
falls on the final, penultimate, or antepenultimate syllable of the
Pword. However, the distribution is not even; in a random sampling test of 105 audio clips, 66 tokens had primary stress on the penultimate syllable. With the addition of
enclitics
In Morphology (linguistics), morphology and syntax, a clitic (, Back-formation, backformed from Ancient Greek, Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) ...
, primary stress sometimes shifts towards the end of the word to stay within the stress window, but since Wamesa
prefers its metrical feet to be
trochees, stress usually jumps from the head of one foot to the next, rather than jumping single syllables.
Note that stress in Wamesa is not predictable, meaning there is no rule for where primary stress will occur. Therefore, stress is specified in the underlying form of words. However, as mentioned earlier, stress shift may occur in certain words in order to create a better phonological structure (i.e. create alternation while avoiding clash and lapse).
Secondary stresses are apparent in words of more than two syllables and, in cases of shifting stress, can be added at the beginnings of words to reduce lapses (several adjacent syllables without any stress). In the example below, the addition of the enclitic
determiner
A determiner, also called determinative (abbreviated ), is a word, phrase, or affix that occurs together with a noun or noun phrase and generally serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context. That is, a determiner m ...
''=pai'' causes primary stress to shift to the right by two syllables (a single foot), and a secondary stress is added to the left in order to fill the lapse.
However, secondary stress always precedes primary stress and clitics are never able to carry stress in Wamesa. These two factors mean that the addition of multiple enclitics sometimes causes large lapses at the ends of words. For example, the construction below has a 5-syllable lapse at the end.
This would appear to be a violation of the 3-syllable stress window, but the fact that clitics never carry stress indicates that they may combine with their hosts at the level of the Pphrase rather than at Pword, where the stress window is relevant. Additionally, lapse is evaluated at the level of the Pword, meaning that stress in the following word never shifts to compensate. That is to say, stress in a word following the above construction would never shift leftwards for the purpose of reducing the lapse between words. This is in contrast to clash, (adjacent stressed syllables) which is evaluated at the level of the phonological phrase. Thus, to avoid clash, stress can shift within a word to compensate for the presence of a stressed syllable across a word boundary. For example, the word ''ka.tú'' 'small' typically has a stressed final syllable. However, when followed by ''yá.na'' 'there' as in the phrase below, stress within ''ka.tú'' shifts to avoid two adjacent stressed syllables.
In summary, lapse avoidance can only occur at the level of Pword, while clash avoidance is relevant at the level of Pphrase.
Orthography
In much of the literature on Wamesa an orthography is used which is based on the orthographic system of
Indonesian
Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to:
* Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia
** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago
** Indonesian ...
. This orthography diverges from IPA notation in the following cases:
* /β/ is notated ⟨v⟩
* /d͡ʒ/ is notated ⟨j⟩
* /j/ is notated ⟨y⟩
* /ŋ/ is notated ⟨ng⟩ – clusters of /ŋg/ therefore appear as ⟨ngg⟩
Syntax
Wamesa includes the following parts of speech: noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, adjective, determiner, preposition, complementizer, conjunction, numeral, interrogative, imperative, locative, demonstrative, particle, interjection, and adposition.
Word Order
Wamesa is an
SVO (subject, verb, object) language. Wamesa has NADQ (noun, adjective, demonstrative, quantifier) order, which is rare in the world's languages.
When a sentence involves an applicative, the word order is as follows: (subject) instrument verb (object), with the items in parentheses as optional.
Adjectives
Adjectives always follow nouns. Unlike verbs, they cannot take the applicative prefix.
Verbs
With regard to verbs, phrases must adhere to the following rules:
# Subject agreement (person and number) must be marked on each verb and only on verbs.
# If direction is involved in the sentence, it must be marked on the verb.
# If there is an essive, it must attach to the verb that is describing a trait of the subject.
# The applicative must attach to the verb, not the instrument.
Adverbs
There are only two manner adverbs in Wamesa: ''saira'' ‘quickly’ and ''nanaria'' ‘slowly.’ Reduplication is used for emphasis: (e.g. ''sasaira'' ‘very quickly’).
Prepositions
Prepositions are non-stackable, meaning they must not appear directly next to a location word nor another preposition. Additionally, they require an NP (noun phrase) complement.
Serial Verb Construction
Wamesa does not have an infinitive construction, but it does have
serial verb construction
The serial verb construction, also known as (verb) serialization or verb stacking, is a syntactic phenomenon in which two or more verbs or verb phrases are strung together in a single clause.Tallerman, M. (1998). ''Understanding Syntax''. London: A ...
s (SVC's). This means that a sequence of multiple verbs may be used to describe a single event. SVC's in Wamesa include the following serializations: same subject, switch subject, multiple object, ambient, and conjoined participant.
Passive Construction
Wamesa does not have a true passive since subject agreement is always marked on the verb. However, when the subject is omitted and the object is moved to the beginning of the sentence and
topicalized, a sort of passive construction results.
Possession
Wamesa distinguishes between
alienable and inalienable nouns. Inalienable nouns in Wamesa include human body parts and kinship terms, while alienable nouns in Wamesa include ‘name’, ‘shadow,’ and everything else. Inalienable nouns in Wamesa can also be used with the alienable possessive construction, but alienable nouns can only be used with the alienable construction. In the dual and plural constructions of possessed nouns, the possessed root gets a prefix that agrees with the possessor in person, number, and animacy.
Question Formation
Wamesa primarily has
WH-in-situ
In linguistics, wh-movement (also known as wh-fronting, wh-extraction, or wh-raising) is the formation of syntactic dependencies involving interrogative words. An example in English is the dependency formed between ''what'' and the object positio ...
, which means that the WH word does not move to the beginning of a sentence in question form and it instead takes the original place of the thing in question. In contrast, English primarily has WH-raising. That said, Wamesa has WH-raising with ''otopi'' ‘why’. Basic polar (yes/no) questions are created by inserting ''te'' after a sentence that would otherwise be a declarative sentence. Tag questions are formed by inserting ''ei'' after the original sentence.
Morphology
Nominal Morphology
A noun phrase (NP) in Wamesa may contain the following: noun, determiner, adjective, number, gender, class (human or nonhuman), relative clause, and quantifier. However, Wamesa does not have case, specificity, and tense. The marker for number goes on the determiner, not the noun. Number cannot be marked twice: it must either be marked explicitly on the determiner or implicitly with a quantifier. When constructing a sentence, there is a wide range of agreement options for human nouns but not for nonhuman nouns.
Affixes and Clitics
Wamesa has an applicative (''it''), causative (''on''), and essive (''ve''-). Additional
affix
In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They ar ...
es include markers for plural (-''si'' ), singular (''-i'' ), and 3rd plural human (''-sia''). Wamesa's
clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a w ...
s include the topicalizer ''=ma'', focus ''=ya'', ''=ye'', ''=e''; and the proximal (''=ne''), default/medial (''=pa''), and distal (''=wa'') definite determiners. Note that Wamesa clitics are only phonological and not syntactic.
Certain verbs involve the use of the supplemental morpheme ''-i''. For example, the verb ''maso'' ‘sit’ requires a location, which can either be explicitly stated or represented by the morpheme ''-i''.
When the verb ''sera'' ‘see’ involves an object, it can either be explicitly stated or represented by the morpheme ''-i''.
Subject Agreement
*The information presented below uses orthography rather than
IPA
IPA commonly refers to:
* India pale ale, a style of beer
* International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation
* Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound
IPA may also refer to:
Organizations International
* Insolvency Practitioners ...
.
Note that with 2sg and 3sg, the agreement is
infix
An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem (an existing word or the core of a family of words). It contrasts with ''adfix,'' a rare term for an affix attached to the outside of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix.
When marking text for int ...
ed.
Usually,
infix
An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem (an existing word or the core of a family of words). It contrasts with ''adfix,'' a rare term for an affix attached to the outside of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix.
When marking text for int ...
ation is used to improve
syllable structure by making a word CVCV (consonant vowel alternation). However, in the case of Wamesa, perceptual metathesis results in the opposite effect.
Negation
The clitic ''=va'' is used to indicate negation, but when it is attached at the end of a sentence, the result is
structurally ambiguous, as the clitic may be negating any one of the words in the sentence.
Applicative
The applicative ''it-'' may function as instrumental or intensifier. Additionally, the applicative prefix in Wamesa can also give aspectual meaning, which is unusual for applicatives. Regarding the use of the applicative as an instrumental, the instrument must not be human nor a human body part, and the applicative verb must agree with the subject, not the instrument. Aspectual information includes the indication that an action is either sudden or completed.
Essive
The essive ''ve-'' functions as a verbalizer, ordinal,
relativizer, or indicator of inherent properties, depending on the context in which it appears.
Locatives
Wamesa has a number of locatives, including ones that act like nouns syntactically. Clitics include ''=ra'' (to.there), ''=ma'' (to.here), ''=wa'' (down), and ''=re'' (in progress).
Direction depends on geography and the “salient area” rather than cardinal directions. Direction is specified with regard to land, sea, and elevation.
''Ira ma re'' ‘I’m going to shore’
''Ira ra ye'' ‘I’m going over there (uphill/inland)’
''ma'' ‘to here’
''ra'' ‘to there’
Lexicon
Wamesa includes a number of loanwords and influences, particularly from Indonesian and Dutch.
Pronouns
Determiners
Determiners can indicate distance, and their meaning is context dependent. The meaning can either be literal or metaphorical. For example, figurative distance can indicate salience or importance.
Kinship System
Wamesa's kinship system is an elaboration of the
Iroquois kinship system. However, as a result of Indonesian influence, over time, Wamesa has lost and collapsed distinctions such as mother's vs. father's side, sex, and parallel vs. cross-cousins. Wamesa does distinguish based on age (e.g. if a cousin is older or younger).
Numerals
Wamesa uses a quinary decimal system with bases 5, 10, and 20. Atomic numerals include 1–5, 10, 20, and 100 (). Wamesa's number system is both additive and multiplicative. For example, ‘20 and 1’ is 21. ‘20 2’ is 40. The word for 20 is also the word for person, likely because a person has 10 fingers and 10 toes.
Ethics of Fieldwork in the Wamesa Community
In general, Wamesa community members are very proud of their language and view it as a gift to be shared with everyone. Thus, they promote research, encourage the publication and sharing of results, and request that the linguistic data be freely accessible. Additionally, community members believe that the spreading of knowledge of the Wamesa language can bring them social prestige and spiritual benefits. While monetary compensation may be desired or accepted by some members of the community, gift-giving may often be more culturally appropriate and significant.
References
External links
Wamesa Talking Dictionary(multilingual in English and Bahasa Indonesia)
* Student Projects
2016an
2017
{{Languages of Indonesia
South Halmahera–West New Guinea languages
Languages of western New Guinea
Papua (province) culture