The Manus languages are a subgroup of about two dozen
Oceanic languages
The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages. The area occupied by speakers of these languages includes Polynesia, as well as much of Melanesia and Micronesia. Though covering a vast area, Oceanic languages ...
located on
Manus Island
Manus Island is part of Manus Province in northern Papua New Guinea and is the largest of the Admiralty Islands. It is the fifth-largest island in Papua New Guinea, with an area of , measuring around . Manus Island is covered in rugged jungles w ...
and nearby offshore islands in
Manus Province of
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 ...
. The exact number of languages is difficult to determine because they form a
dialect continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
(Blust 2007:302). The name ''Manus'' (or ''Moanus'') originally designated an ethnic group whose members spoke closely related languages and whose coastal dwellers tended to build their houses on stilts out over the sea (Bowern 2011:6).
Nowadays the whole population of Manus Province may call themselves 'Manus' people, so the original Manus are distinguished as ''Manus tru'' 'real Manus' (or 'Manus
sensu stricto
''Sensu'' is a Latin word meaning "in the sense of". It is used in a number of fields including biology, geology, linguistics, semiotics, and law. Commonly it refers to how strictly or loosely an expression is used in describing any particular c ...
'). The language of the Manus people most intensively studied by anthropologists, from
Georg Thilenius in the early 1900s through
Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist, author and speaker, who appeared frequently in the mass media during the 1960s and the 1970s.
She earned her bachelor's degree at Barnard Col ...
in the mid-1900s, is now called
Titan
Titan most often refers to:
* Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn
* Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology
Titan or Titans may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Fictional entities
Fictional locations
* Titan in fiction, fictiona ...
(Bowern 2011).
Languages
According to Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002),
the structure of the family is:
*Manus
**West Manus:
Nyindrou,
Sori-Harengan,
Hermit
A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions.
Description
In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Chr ...
(†),
Bipi;
Mondropolon,
Tulu-Bohuai,
Khehek (Drehet, Levei),
Likum
**Intermediate:
Loniu
Loniu is an Austronesian language spoken along the southern coast of Los Negros Island in the Manus Province, immediately east of Manus Island in Manus Province, Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Pap ...
–
Mokerang,
Pak-Tong
**East Manus:
Andra-Hus,
Elu,
Leipon,
Papitalai,
Ponam,
Ere
Ere or ERE may refer to:
* ''Environmental and Resource Economics'', a peer-reviewed academic journal
* ERE Informatique, one of the first French video game companies
* Ere language, an Austronesian language
* Ebi Ere (born 1981), American-Nigeria ...
–
Kele–
Kurti,
Koro–
Lele–
Nali–
Titan
Titan most often refers to:
* Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn
* Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology
Titan or Titans may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Fictional entities
Fictional locations
* Titan in fiction, fictiona ...
One very distinctive phonological trait of these languages is the presence of
prenasalized trill
TRILL (Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links) is a networking protocol for optimizing bandwidth and resilience in Ethernet networks, implemented by devices called TRILL switches. TRILL combines techniques from bridging and routing, and ...
s (Blust 2007). The
bilabial trill , which can be spelled ''mb'' or ''br,'' only occurs before , and sounds like in other environments. The alveolar trill , spelled ''ndr'' or ''dr,'' has no such distributional limitations (2007:303).
References
*
Blust, Robert (2007). The prenasalised trills of Manus. In ''Language description, history, and development: Linguistic indulgence in memory of Terry Crowley,'' ed. by Jeff Siegel, John Lynch, and Diana Eades, pp. 297–311. Creole Language Library vol. 30. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
* Bowern, Claire (2011). ''Sivisa Titan: Sketch grammar, texts, vocabulary based on material collected by P. Josef Meier and Po Minis.'' Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication No. 38. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
* Hamel, Patricia J. (1994). ''A grammar and lexicon of Loniu, Papua New Guinea.'' Pacific Linguistics C-103. Canberra: The Australian National University. 275 pp.
* Hamel, Patricia J. (1993). Serial verbs in Loniu and an evolving preposition. ''Oceanic Linguistics'' 32:111–132.
*
Lynch, John,
Malcolm Ross,
Terry Crowley (2002). ''The Oceanic languages.'' Richmond, Surrey: Curzon. , OCLC 48929366.
* Ohnemus, Sylvia (1998). ''An Ethnology of the Admiralty Islanders: The Alfred Bühler Collection, Museum der Kulturen, Basel.'' Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. .
*
Ross, M. D. (1988). ''Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian languages of Western Melanesia.'' Pacific Linguistics C-98. Canberra: The Australian National University. 487 pp.
{{Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages
Admiralty Islands languages
Languages of Manus Province