The Kuot language, or Panaras, is a

language isolate A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...

, the only non- Austronesian language spoken on the island of New Ireland,

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

. Lindström (2002: 30) estimates that there are 1,500 fluent speakers of Kuot. Perhaps due to the small speaker base, there are no significant dialects present within Kuot. It is spoken in 10 villages, including Panaras village () of Sentral Niu Ailan Rural LLG in New Ireland Province.

Locations

Kuot is spoken in the following 10 villages. The first five villages are located on the eastern coast, and the last five on the western coast in New Ireland.Lindström, Eva. 2002. ''Topics in the Grammar of Kuot''. Ph.D. dissertation, Stockholm University. Geographical coordinates are also provided for each village. *Kama () *Bol () (mixed with Nalik speakers) *Fanafiliuo *Liedan () *Kabi () *Naiama () *Panaras () *Naliut () *Nakalakalap () *Patlangat () *Bimun () Combined, the two villages of Naliut and Nakalakalap are known as Neiruaran (). Most of the villages are located in Sentral Niu Ailan Rural LLG, though some of the eastern villages, such as Kama and Bol, are located in Tikana Rural LLG. The Kuot variety described by Lindström (2002) is that of Bimun village.

Language contact

Lenition In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language ...

in some

Austronesian languages The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken ...

of New Ireland, namely Lamasong, Madak, Barok, Nalik, and Kara, may have diffused via influence from Kuot (Ross 1994: 566).

Status

Kuot is an

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 langua ...

and most children, if not all, grow up speaking

Tok Pisin Tok Pisin ( ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student's Handbook'', Edinburgh ; ), often referred to by English speakers as New Guinea Pidgin or simply Pidgin, is an English-based creole languages, English creole language spoken throughou ...

instead.Eva Lindström (November 12, 2002). "Kuot Language and Culture". Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University. Retrieved October 14, 2016. p. 102.

Phonology and orthography

Consonants

The following table contains Kuot's consonants:

Vowels

The vowels /i/ and /u/ tend to become glide-vowels in occurrence with other vowels. The length of the vowels is not making differences for the meaning of words. The appearance of /i/ and /u/ with other vowels can not be seen as

diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, 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 ...

or a combination of vowel and glide-vowel. There are never more than three vowels per syllable. The combination of diphthong and vowel is also possible but they are pronounced in conditions of the syllable. Diphthongs are spoken like one sound. The following table contains Kuot's vowels:

Morphophonemic alternations

't' to 'r' alternation

The phoneme in certain possessive markers, such as "''-tuaŋ''", "''-tuŋ''" and "''-tuo''" becomes when it comes after a stem ending in a vowel. Compare: * ''ira-ruaŋ'' – my father * ''luguan-tuaŋ'' – my house * ''i'rama-ruo'' – my eye * ''nebam-tuaŋ'' – my feather

Vowel shortening

Where the third person singular masculine suffix "-oŋ" is used on a noun that ends with a vowel, this vowel is typically not pronounced. For instance, "''amaŋa-oŋ''" is pronounced , not .

Voicing rule

When vowel-initial suffixes are added to stems that end in voiceless consonants, those consonants become voiced. For example: * ''he splits it'' * ''he drinks'' * ''he prays'' The phoneme becomes , not . * ''it comes out'' * ''her eyes''

Grammar

Kuot is the only Papuan language that has VSO word order. The

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

of the language is primarily

agglutinative In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes (word parts), each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglu ...

. There are two

grammatical genders In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages wit ...

, male and female, and distinction is made in the first person between singular, dual, and plural, as well as between exclusive and inclusive. For instance, the sentence literally means 'my father eats sweet potato'. ''Parak-oŋ'' is a

continuous aspect The continuous and progressive aspects (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated and ) are grammatical aspects that express incomplete action ("to do") or state ("to be") in progress at a specific time: they are non-habitual, imperfective asp ...

of the verb meaning 'to eat', ''ira'' means 'father', ''-ruaŋ'' is a suffix used to indicate

inalienable possession In linguistics, inalienable possession ( abbreviated ) is a type of possession in which a noun is obligatorily possessed by its possessor. Nouns or nominal affixes in an inalienable possession relationship cannot exist independently or be "al ...

('my father'), and ''kamin'' is a simple noun meaning '

sweet potato The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant in the morning glory family, Convolvulaceae. Its sizeable, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a root vegetable, which is a staple food in parts of ...

Noun declensions

Kuot nouns can be singular, dual, or plural. Below are some noun declension paradigms in Kuot (from Stebbins, et al. (2018), based on Lindström 2002: 147–146): :

Vocabulary

The following basic vocabulary words are from Lindström (2008), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database: :

References

External links

Kuot language word list at TransNewGuinea.org

Kuot word list
(Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database) {{DEFAULTSORT:Kuot Language Agglutinative languages East Papuan languages Language isolates of New Guinea Languages of New Ireland Province Verb–subject–object languages Vulnerable languages Endangered Papuan languages Endangered language isolates