Abom is a nearly extinct language spoken in the

Western Province Western Province or West Province may refer to: *Western Province, Cameroon *Western Province, Rwanda *Western Province (Kenya) *Western Province (Papua New Guinea) *Western Province (Solomon Islands) *Western Province, Sri Lanka *Western Provinc ...

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 ...

. According to a 2002 census, only 15 people still speak this language. All of the speakers are older adults. Middle-aged adults have some understanding of it, but no children speak or understand Abom. Abom is spoken in Lewada (), Mutam (), and Tewara () villages of

Gogodala Rural LLG Gogodala Rural LLG is a local-level government (LLG) of Western Province, Papua New Guinea. The Gogodala-Suki languages, Dibiyaso, and Turumsa are mostly spoken within this LLG. Wards *01. Ali *02. Makapa ( Turumsa language and Dibiyaso langu ...

Classification

Abom is not close to other languages. Pawley and Hammarström (2018) classify Abom as a divergent Tirio language on the basis of morphological evidence; Abom shares the same gender ablaut pattern as other

Tirio languages The Tirio languages are a family of Trans–New Guinea languages in the classification of Malcolm Ross. The Tirio languages have about 40% of their lexicon in common. Languages * Baramu * Bitur (Mutum) * Tirio (Makayam, Aturu) *Were ''Were ...

. Evans (2018), however, lists Abom as a separate branch of Trans-New Guinea. Suter & Usher find that it is not an

Anim language The Anim or Fly River languages are a language family in south-central New Guinea established by Usher & Suter (2015).Timothy Usher and Edgar Suter (2015) "The Anim Languages of Southern New Guinea". ''Oceanic Linguistics'' 54:110–142 The name ...

(the Trans–New Guinea family that includes the Tirio languages), but does appear to be divergent Trans–New Guinea. Part of the problem is many recorded Abom words are loans from the

Inland Gulf languages The Inland Gulf languages are a family of Trans–New Guinea languages in the classifications of Stephen Wurm Stephen Adolphe Wurm ( hu, Wurm István Adolf, ; 19 August 1922 – 24 October 2001) was a Hungarian-born Australian linguist. ...

, reducing the material needed for comparison.

Pronouns

Jore and Alemán (2002: 48) give pronouns for Abom as follows:

References

Bibliography

*"Sociolinguistic survey of the Tirio language family", Tim Jore and Laura Aleman. Unpublished Manuscript. *

External links

* Timothy Usher, New Guinea World
AbomOLAC resources in and about the Abom language
*ELAR collection
Documentation and description of Bitur and preliminary investigation of the moribund Abom language
deposited by Phillip Rogers {{Languages of Papua New Guinea Languages of Western Province (Papua New Guinea) Trans–New Guinea languages Endangered Papuan languages Unclassified languages of New Guinea