Tehit language

Tehit
	Kaibus
Native to	Indonesia
Region	Papua
Native speakers	10,000 (2000)[1]; 500 monolinguals (2000?)[2]
Language family	West Papuan Bird's Head West Bird's Head Tehit; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kps
Glottolog	tehi1237[3]
	Tehit Tehit
	Coordinates: 1.51°S 131.99°E

Tehit is a Papuan language of the Bird's Head Peninsula of New Guinea. Other spellings are Tahit, Tehid, and other names Kaibus, Teminabuan. Dialects are Tehit Jit, Mbol Fle, Saifi, Imyan, Sfa Riere, Fkar, Sawiat Salmeit. A grammar sketch can be found in Don Flassy's 1991 Leiden University M.A.. thesis.[4]

Morphology

Tehit has four grammatical genders, which are masculine, feminine, plural, and neuter. Examples:[5]

gender	suffix	examples
masculine	-w	ndla-w ‘husband’, sna-w ‘moon’, qliik-w ‘snake’
feminine	-m	-ene-m ‘mother’, tali-m ‘sun’, mbol-m ‘house’
plural	-y	sinas-y ‘small mosquito’, sinaq-y ‘gravel’, siray ‘salt’
neuter	zero	n/a

Gender prefixes in Tehit can not only be used to denote gender, but also size, wholeness, and the stability of appearances. Masculine gender is associated with small size, parts of wholes, and changing appearances, while feminine gender is associated with large size, wholeness, and stable appearances. Examples (from Flassy 1991: 10–12):

wet ‘child’: wet-m; child-3F; ‘girl’

wet-w

child-3M

‘boy’

e’ren ‘fish’: e’ren-m; fish-3F; ‘big fish’

e’ren-w

fish-3M

‘small fish’

mbol ‘house’: mbol-y; house-3PL; ‘houses’

mbol-w

house-3M

‘small house’ / ‘houses’

sika ‘cat’: sika-w; cat-3M; ‘male cat’ / ‘cats’

References

Tehit at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Tehit language at Ethnologue (15th ed., 2005)
Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Tehit". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
Flassy, Don Augusthinus Lamaech. 1991. Grammar sketch of Tehit: A Toror language, the West Doberai Peninsula, New Guinea (Irian Jaya). Leiden University M.A. Thesis.
Holton, Gary; Klamer, Marian (2018). "The Papuan languages of East Nusantara and the Bird's Head". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 569–640. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.

External links

Hesse, Ronald. "Tehit". NUSA - Linguistic Studies of Indonesian and Other Languages in Indonesia. In: Volume 47 (2000) Ger P. REESINK (ed.): Studies in Irian Languages, Part II.

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[e18-1] Tehit at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)

[e15-2] Tehit language at Ethnologue (15th ed., 2005)

[Glottolog-3] Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Tehit". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

[4] Flassy, Don Augusthinus Lamaech. 1991. Grammar sketch of Tehit: A Toror language, the West Doberai Peninsula, New Guinea (Irian Jaya). Leiden University M.A. Thesis.

[Holton-Birds-Head-5] Holton, Gary; Klamer, Marian (2018). "The Papuan languages of East Nusantara and the Bird's Head". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 569–640. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.