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Kilmeri language
Papuan language of Papua New Guinea From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Kilmeri, or bo apulyo is a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea near the border with Indonesian Papua. It is not being learned by children.
Kilmeri is spoken around Ossima ward (2.916313°S 141.298028°E) in Bewani/Wutung Onei Rural LLG, Sandaun Province.[1][2]
Speakers of Kilmeri refer to their own language as bo apulyo, meaning sound in the middle.[3]
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Dialects
- Western Kilmeri dialect (spoken in western villages)
- Elau
- Osol
- Kilipau
- Kiliwes
- Isi
- I
- Isi II
- Sosi
- Ilup
- Eastern Kilmeri dialect (spoken in eastern villages and hamlets)
- Ossima
- Isi Daru
- Akos
- Awol
- Airu
- Asue
- Omoi
- Omula
The two major dialect groupings have an estimated cognate percentage of 82% based on lexicostatistics.[4]
Phonology
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Kilmeri distinguishes 18 consonants, 12 of which are phonemic.[3]
The sounds in parentheses are possible allophones of the bilabial trill. [β] can be intervocalical, [ɸ] can be the final sound, and [pʷ̜] can be syllable-initial. The sounds in half brackets occur extremely rarely and can likely be attributed to loan words. [3]
The exceedingly rare bilabial trill /ʙ/ is found in the areal-related Kwomtari and Sko languages, but not in other Border languages.[6] It likely developed from a prenasalized bilabial stop followed by a high back rounded vowel, hence why [mbu] occurs only in ten words.
Kilmeri has eight vowels, all of which are always short. [3]
The near-high and near-low vowels are especially rare.[3] Thus, Kilmeri was believed to have seven vowels[6] until a small selection of words, such as /bi/ (pig) and /bI/ (hole) show a clear distinction between /i/ and /I/.[3]
The main syllable structure is CV with two preferred syllables. [3]
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Orthography
The phonetic inventory easily translates into Latin letters. The near-low vowel uses ae and the near-high vowels use diacritics. Literate Kilmeri speakers much preferred the symbol p for the bilabial trill, but pp was selected to indicate two different phonemes.[3]
Pronouns
Kilmeri has eleven personal pronouns without gender distinction. [6]
The dual forms end with the locative suffix -yo and is derived from the singular. The inclusive dual is often substituted with the inclusive plural, especially in narrative stories.[3]
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Verbs
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Kilmeri verb forms can express complex modality. Examples:[6]
de-le PROB-go ‘will probably go’ lam < le-m go-POT ‘might go’ lou < le-ou go-FRUST ‘go in vain’ lap < le-p go-IMP ‘go!’ klam < k-le-m NEG.IMP-go-NEG.IMP ‘don’t go!’ loipap < le-ipe-p go-first-IMP ‘go first, and then…’
Circumfixes can also be applied to verbs in Kilmeri.
Number agreement in Kilmeri is absolutive rather than accusative.[6]
In Kilmeri, intransitive verbs, as well as the two transitive verbs ‘eat’ and ‘throw down to’, agree with subjects in number. This pattern is also present in Amanab. These verbs are:[6]
However, number marking for transitive verbs, except for ‘eat’ and ‘throw down to’, refers to the number of the object, rather than the subject.[6]
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References
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