Kaure language

Kaure is a Papuan language of West Papua. It is spoken in the villages of Lereh, Harna, Wes, Masta, and Aurina.^[2][3]

Kaure
Native to	Indonesia
Region	Papua: Aurina, Harna, Lereh, Masta, and Wes villages on the Nawa River
Native speakers	(450 cited 1995)[1]
Language family	Kaure–Kosare Kaure
Dialects	Narau
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bpp
Glottolog	kaur1271
ELP	Kaure Narau
Map: The Kaure, Kapori, and Kosare languages of New Guinea   The Kaure, Kapori, and Kosare languages   Other Trans–New Guinea languages   Other Papuan languages   Austronesian languages   Uninhabited

Narau is either a dialect or a closely related language. It is known from a short word list in Giël (1959).^[4] Texts include Auri et al. (1991).^[5]

Phonology

Consonants

The Kaure consonants are:^[6]: 456

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k
	voiced	ᵐb	ⁿd	ʤ
Fricative			s			h
Liquid				l
Semivowel		w		j

Vowels

The Kaure vowels are:^[6]: 456

	Front	Back
Close	i, y
Mid	e	o
Open	a

Tone

Like the Lakes Plain languages, Kaure is a tonal language. There are two tones, namely high and low.^[6]: 456

Monosyllabic minimal pairs showing phonemic tone contrast include:

• tái ‘footprint’, tài ‘sago’
• pí ‘boil’, pì ‘pig’
• hín ‘limbum wood’, hìn ‘blood’
• héik ‘flower’, hèik ‘snake’

In multisyllabic words, only one stressed syllable carries full tone contrasts, while the other syllables are "neutral" or toneless.^[6]: 456

Multisyllabic minimal sets include:

• káteil ‘toss it’, katéil ‘dry’, katèil ‘dry’
• nálain ‘female animal’, naláin ‘kind of root’, nalàin ‘to run off’

Pronouns

Attested pronouns are 1sg wẽ, 2sg hane, 1pl nene. The 2sg form resembles Mek *ka-n, and 1pl resembles Pauwasi numu~nin, but apart from that little can be said.

Kaure pronouns listed by Foley (2018) are:^[6]

	Independent	Possessive prefixes
1excl	wen	na-
1incl	nene	nene-
2	hane	ha-
3	nene	ne-

Kaure pronouns are not specified for number, just like in Nimboran.^[6]

Kaure–Kapori hypothesis

Voorhoeve (1975) suggested that Kaure was related to Kapori and Kosare, two otherwise unclassified languages. However, subsequent evaluations have not found any significant connections (Rumaropen 2006, Wambaliau 2006).