Kibiri_language

Porome language

Porome language

Language isolate of Papua New Guinea


Porome, also known as Kibiri, is a Papuan language of southern Papua New Guinea.

Quick Facts Native to, Region ...

Classification

Porome was classified as a language isolate by Stephen Wurm. Although Malcolm Ross linked it to the Kiwaian languages, there is no evidence for a connection apart from the pronouns 1sg amo and 2sg do (cf. proto-Kiwaian *mo and *oro).

Distribution

There are over a thousand speakers in Babaguina (7.480977°S 144.254009°E / -7.480977; 144.254009 (Babaguina)), Doibo (7.45766°S 144.271731°E / -7.45766; 144.271731 (Doibo/Babeio/Veiru)), Ero (7.446131°S 144.364831°E / -7.446131; 144.364831 (Ero)), Paile, Tipeowo, and Wowa (7.414287°S 144.315579°E / -7.414287; 144.315579 (Wowou)) villages in West Kikori Rural LLG and East Kikori Rural LLG of Gulf Province, near the Aird Hills and Kikori River tributaries.[2][3]

Phonology

Porome has 9 native consonants. /s/ occurs in loanwords. There are no glottal consonants.[4]

ptk~g~ɣ
bd
v
mn
r
(s)

There are five vowels, which are /a, e, i, o, u/.[4]

Like the surrounding languages, Porome is a tonal language. It has 5 tones.[4]

  • High-level: kóí ‘cloth’
  • Low-level: kòì ‘selfish’
  • Rising: mèrí ‘road’
  • Falling: mérìpandanus
  • Peaking: pàkúmì ‘feather’

Pronouns

The independent pronouns and subject suffixes to the verb are as follows:

More information sg, du ...

Vocabulary

Selected Porome vocabulary from Petterson (2010):[5]

Body parts

More information Gloss ...

Numerals

More information Gloss ...

Village and society

More information Gloss ...

Nature and environment

More information Gloss ...

Plants

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Animals

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Comparison

Lexical comparison of Porome with neighboring languages:[4]

More information gloss, Porome (isolate) ...

Comparison of Porome's phonological inventory with those of neighboring languages:[4]

More information language, no. of consonants ...

References

  1. Porome at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2019). "Papua New Guinea languages". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (22nd ed.). Dallas: SIL International.
  3. United Nations in Papua New Guinea (2018). "Papua New Guinea Village Coordinates Lookup". Humanitarian Data Exchange. 1.31.9.
  4. Petterson, Robert. 2019. Interesting Features of Porome: An Isolate Language of PNG. Paper presented at the LSPNG 2019 Conference. 30pp.
  5. Petterson, Robert. 2010. Porome Daporo Avea Buka = Porome Language Picture Dictionary. Ukarumpa: SIL-PNG.
  • Ross, Malcolm (2005). "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages". In Andrew Pawley; Robert Attenborough; Robin Hide; Jack Golson (eds.). Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 15–66. ISBN 0858835622. OCLC 67292782.

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This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Kibiri_language, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.