Purari language

Purari
Native to Papua New Guinea
Region Purari River, Gulf Province
Native speakers
 7,000 (2011)[1]
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3 iar
Glottolog pura1257[3]

Purari is a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea.

Pronouns are 1sg nai, 2sg ni, 1pl enei. The first may resemble Trans–New Guinea *na, but Purari appears to be related to the Binanderean–Goilalan languages.[2]

Name

Purari is also known as Koriki, Evorra, I'ai, Maipua, and Namau. "Namau" is a colonial term which means "deaf (lit.), inattentive, or stupid (Williams 1924: 4)." Today people of the Purari Delta find this term offensive. F.E. Williams reports that the "[a]n interpreter suggests that by some misunderstanding the name had its origin in the despair of an early missionary, who, finding the natives turned a deaf ear to his teaching, dubbed them all 'Namau'." (Williams 1924: 4). Koriki, I'ai, and Maipua refer to self-defining groups that make up the six groups that today compose the people who speak Purari. Along with the Baroi (formerly known as the Evorra, which was the name of a village site), Kaimari and the Vaimuru, these groups speak mutually intelligible dialects of Purari.

References

  1. ↑ Purari at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. 1 2 New Guinea World, Oro – Wharton Range
  3. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Purari". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

Further reading

  • Holmes, J. H. (Jan–June 1913). "A Preliminary Study of the Namau Language, Purari Delta, Papua". Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 43: 124–142. doi:10.2307/2843165. JSTOR 2843165. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  • Williams, F.E. (1924). The natives of the Purari Delta. Port Moresby: Government Printer.

    Materials on Karnai are included in the open access Arthur Capell collections (AC1 and AC2) held by Paradisec

    • Paradisec has an open access collection from Tom Dutton (TD1) that includes Purari language materials


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