Pawaia language

Pawaia, also known as Sira, Tudahwe, Yasa, is a Papuan language that forms a tentative independent branch of the Trans–New Guinea family in the classification of Malcolm Ross (2005).

Pawaia
Region	Papua New Guinea
Native speakers	(6,000 cited 2000)[1]
Language family	Papuan Gulf ? Teberan–Pawaian[2] Pawaia
Dialects	Aurama (Turoha, Uri) Hauruha
Language codes
ISO 639-3	pwa
Glottolog	pawa1255
ELP	Pawaia
Map: The Pawaia language of New Guinea   The Pawaia language   Trans–New Guinea languages   Other Papuan languages   Austronesian languages   Uninhabited

Distribution

Pawaia is spoken in:^[1]

• Chimbu Province: Karimui District
• Eastern Highlands Province: Lufa District and Okapa District, Lamari River
• Gulf Province: Baimuru Rural LLG, Purari River near Oroi^[3]

Classification

Although Pawaia has reflexes of proto-Trans–New Guinea vocabulary, Ross considers its inclusion questionable on available evidence. Usher classifies it instead with the Teberan languages. Noting insufficient evidence, Pawley and Hammarström (2018) leave it as unclassified rather than as part of Trans-New Guinea.^[4]

Pawley and Hammarström (2018) do not consider there to be sufficient evidence for Pawaia to be classified as part of Trans-New Guinea, though they do note the following lexical resemblances between Pawaia and proto-Trans-New Guinea.^[4]

• emi ‘breast’ < *amu
• in ‘tree’ < *inda
• su ‘tooth’ < *(s,t)i(s,t)i

Phonology

Consonants^[5]

	Labial	Alveolar	Dorsal
Plosive	p	t	k
Fricative		s	h
Nasal	m	n
Approximant	w	l	j

Vowels^[5]

	Front	Central	Back
High	i ĩ		u ũ
Mid	e ẽ		o õ
Low		a ã	ɔ ɔ̃

Pawaia is also tonal, contrasting high and low tone.^[5]

Vocabulary

The following basic vocabulary words are from Macdonald (1973)^[6] and Trefry (1969),^[5] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:^[7]

gloss	Pawaia
head	mu
hair	muse; sị
ear	nȩᶦ; nɛ̣i
eye	to; toᵘ
nose	ho; họ
tooth	su
tongue	ha̧pi; hɛmina
leg	hɛ; si̧ʔi̧
louse	po; poř
dog	hạ; hɛ̧
pig	ya
bird	deř; ge
egg	ge džu; yo
blood	sɛni; su̧
bone	džɛmɛ; yɛmi
skin	hɛʔȩ; hɛi
breast	ɛmi
tree	i̧; in
man	džʌʔla; yala
woman	oi; u
sun	ol; olsuɛ; sia
moon	we; wɛ
water	sa
fire	sia
stone	tobu; topu
road, path	sụ
name	hɛʔɛpi; hopi
eat	hatisụɛ; ti haʔayɛ
one	pɛʔɛmi; pomi
two	naʔau; nau

Further reading

• Trefry, David. 1969. A Comparative Study of Kuman and Pawaian. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.