The
Kwomtari Phylum
(This Site is still
under Construction)
Wietze Baron
Started: October 2007
Language classifications
As in biology with its
classification of species, linguists also have a need for classification. They
used to use terms like Phylum, Stock, Family and Dialects to classify the
languages of the world. The phyla were the broadest groups. These were in
turn subdivided in terms of stocks, stocks in terms of families etc. But as the
relationships turned out to be too complex for such a simple taxonomy, the
tendency is now to respresent them in terms of tree
structures. A broad, largely geographically determined, division is made in
terms of PHYLA, and from there on all we find is Language Trees.
Cf. Global Mapping International and The Ethnologue,
languages of the world
We lived as a family in the
Fas (Momu)-speaking village of Kilifas, Sandaun
Province, Papua New Guinea. Papuan languages have traditionally been considered
impossible to place within external phyla. Even within Papua New Guinea
itself, languages were so diverse that a number of special phyla
were laid out. The Fas-language had been placed in the Kwomtari Phylum by
Loving and Bass.
They suggested the
following language tree:
Kwomtari and Biaka are clearly fairly closely related languages, but Fas
and Baibai are even closer. It therefore made no
sense that they were grouped at a Stock level. I was able to consult their
survey data and it turned out that in their typed data sheets, a large part of
the corpus had been skewed, probably by a typing error where the glosses
appeared a line lower than the items they belonged to. This may also have put
Don Laycock off the track, when in 1975 he suggested the following
classification
Laycock added PYU on the
border with Irian Jaya.
My family lived in the Fas
speaking village of Kilifas, intermittently from 1977
- 1988. In 1983 I was able to carry out a helicopter supported survey of key
locations within this phylum. A short wordlist of 100 items was used, but I
also looked at aspects of syntax and morphology. As a result I suggested
the following language tree:
The survey revealed the
existence of a hitherto unkown language which I have
called GURIASO, following the name of a central village. I frankly have no idea
of what the phylum and stock characteristics would be in this representation.
In that respect I am simply following the Loving and Bass and Laycock
precedent. A copy of the report was sent to the Linguistics Department of
SIL Ukarumpa, the Linguistics Department of the University of Papua New Guinea
and to the Australian National University (care of Stephen Wurm and
Don Laycock). Don Laycock responded a year or so later expressing
strong feelings that PYU was part of this taxonomy. The rough draft is now
available: Kwomtari Survey A summary is contained in my paper
called Malay Influence on West Sepik
Kinship Terminology., read at a
meeting of the Linguistic Society of Papua New Guinea.
(to be replaced)
This index lists the
villages belonging to each language and the population figures from the 1979
census. As you can tell from names like Tamina 1, Tamina 2 etc., the names were
often thought up by patrol officers. People traditionally live in small clan hamlets.
Government authorities put pressure on them to go and live in larger villages.
FAS |
Resident |
Absent |
Total |
Yo |
82 |
13 |
95 |
Sumumini |
119 |
4 |
123 |
Wara Mayu |
57 |
20 |
77 |
Kilifas |
120 |
17 |
137 |
Fugumui |
114 |
10 |
124 |
Fas 2 |
117 |
17 |
134 |
Fas 3 |
77 |
13 |
90 |
Finamui |
30 |
8 |
38 |
Fugeri |
128 |
8 |
136 |
Aiamina |
68 |
5 |
73 |
Tamina 1 |
73 |
9 |
82 |
Nebike |
132 |
4 |
136 |
Tamina 2 |
40 |
17 |
57 |
Utai |
81 |
3 |
84 |
Mumuru |
99 |
7 |
106 |
Savamui |
32 |
18 |
50 |
Mori |
78 |
9 |
87 |
Total |
1447 |
182 |
1629 |
|
|
|
|
BAIBAI |
Resident |
Absent |
Total |
Itomi |
65 |
15 |
80 |
Piemi |
47 |
10 |
57 |
Baibai |
60 |
16 |
76 |
Yebdibi |
70 |
1 |
71 |
Total |
242 |
42 |
284 |
|
|
|
|
KWOMTARI |
Resident |
Absent |
Total |
Mango |
64 |
1 |
65 |
Kwomtari |
86 |
12 |
98 |
Baiberi |
79 |
23 |
102 |
Yenabi |
109 |
41 |
150 |
Yau'uri |
84 |
20 |
415 |
Wagroni |
39 |
? |
>39 |
Total |
461 |
>97 |
>558 |
|
|
|
|
BIAKA |
Resident |
Absent |
Total |
Konabasi |
146 |
6 |
152 |
Biaka |
200 |
9 |
209 |
Amini |
100 |
? |
>100 |
Total |
446 |
>15 |
>461 |
|
|
|
|
Grand total |
2596 |
>336 |
>2932 |
Fas
Kwomtari
Fas (Momu)
FAS was the name given to people and the
language in the Northern section of the phylum. There is nowhere a village to
be found that is itself called FAS. Two villages are called Fas followed by a
number: Fas 2 and Fas 3. A third village is called Kilifas. This may well have been considered to be Fas 1 by
name giving patrol officers. The people themselves now refer to these villages
as Tufas ("Two Fas") and Trifas ("Three Fas"). Kilifas
they pronounce as Krifas. As I'll explain in the
section on Kilifas, I believe the original patrol
officer given name was also 'TriFas' (Fas number
3). "Fas" itself is used for an area within the region. (A
12/2012 note: Fiona Blake (2007) reported on the desire of people in the
Northern villages, to call their language by their word for "no",
that is Momu. During my recent trip to Kilifas it became clear that here to "Momu" would
be the word of choice for their language. This may heve
to be taken seriously. See my earlier note further down this paper.)
The Territory of the Fas (Momu) people (exact
borders unknown)
Overview of Fas Phonology (Wietze Baron)
Light from the Dark Ages of Chomsky and Halle's "Abstrct Phonology"
Cases of
Counter-Feeding in Fas (Wietze Baron)
Kwomtari
Survey (Wietze
Baron)
New: Orthographic Mismatches: Fas vs
Melanesian Pidgin (revised) (Wietze Baron)
Malay Influence on West Sepik Kinship Terminology (Wietze Baron)
(Notes on) Aspects of Tense and
Aspect in Fas
(Wietze Baron)
Spatial
Reference in Momu
(Fiona Blake)
Tom Honeyman's personal page (working on a PHD
in Fas/Momu)
Wikipedia Article on the Kwomtari-Fas
Phylum
Report on a recent trip to Kilifas
To appear:
Towards a Phonology of Fas
Towards a Fas Grammar
New: Fas (TokPisin
– English Lexicon)
Kilifas is the name of the Fas speaking
village on the Yenebu river. When I left in 1989 the
houses were situated on the northern bank of the river. Due to a severe flood,
the river changed its course and the village has now moved to the other side.
The name "Kilifas" has an interesting
history. The Fas language does not have and 'l' and Fas speakers do not try and
twist their tongues to pronounce it. They call the village
"KRIFAS". Villages in this area are government induced. Patrol
officers (called "KIAPs") requested (if not required) the people who
traditionally live in small clan size hamlets to have communual
villages. These villages where then given names. Names were often based on the
name of the rivers they were located on. Fas speakers added their own suffix
-muy, which meant "people (of)". So we get Finamoi (should have been Fine-muy),
meaning "people of the river Fine", also Fugumoi
(really Fuky-muy ) and Savamui
(possibly Saf-muy).
Aerial picture of Kilifas
after it had been washed away by theYenebu river and
was rebuilt on the other side. (90's)
So, back to the Kilifas mystery. There are two more villages officially
called Fas, i.e. Fas 2 and Fas 3. These are
locally called Tufas and Trifas
("Two Fas" and "Three Fas"). So where is "One
Fas" ? Or just "Fas"? I have not been able to find an
origin for the word "kili" or "kri", not in Fas itself, neither in any neigbouring language nor in Malay which had its influence
in the area. It is my belief that Kilifas was
originally called / Trifas/, i.e "Three Fas". An 'l' does seem to exist
in Baibai, the closely related neigbouring
language and there is very regular interchange of r and k in Baibai and Fas, where Fas has [k] and Baibai [r],
e.g.
Fas
Baibai
O = open rounded back vowel E = open front
vowel e =shwa
hakO
harO
"egg"
kemas
remas
'bow'
fek
fere
'house"
kakefi
rarefi
"tabacco"
also kafeki via kf-metathesis
kamesO
rasmO
"smoke" sm-metathesis
involved
I could imagine that Baibai speakers reinterpreted [trifas]
as [k(i)lifas] hearing a
[k] and an [l] in [tr]. Subsequent patrol officers hearing it pronounced
this way, then officially recorded it as KILIFAS. With this "Trifas" out of the way there was room for a
new "Trifas" ("Fas 3") when
it was discovered.
The Fas language is spoken
by less than 2000 speakers in 17 main villages. The villagers tend to spend
long periods in their clan hamlets. The name Fas was given to the language by
linguists, possibly Loving and Bas in 1964. Before that Capell (1962) had
surveyed the area and calls the "dialects"spoken
in the Bewani mountains "Bembi". He claims
that a dialect of the language is also spoken near Abau,
which is way South near what is now Green River. As Fas has no prenasalised
stops, it is likely that his name source was "Baibai",
a closely related language which has voiced and prenasalised stops. The
sample data he presents is very likely Fas (unless Baibai
close resembles these forms). From these data he concludes that Fas
incorporates pronoun objects in the verb. He is right but the data don't show
it.
Symbols used for the "Actual"
rendering: O = open rounded back vowel E = open
front vowel e =shwa yi = high front
vowel
Capell:
Fi nabuana
'Give me water'
Actual:
fyi nE- puen
-
E
fi nEpuenE !
Gloss
water with - come -
imperative
"Come and bring water!"
Capell:
fi nawo
'Give him water'
Actual
fyi nOw -O
Gloss
water give -
imperative
"Give (him/her) water !"
For more on Fas grammar see
the references earlier on.
Fiona
Blake (2007)
carried out a research programme for her BA thesis in the Fas speaking village
of Mori, in the North. She met with reluctance amongst the villagers to use the
name of another village, i.e Fas, for their
language. Upon which she decided to christen the language "Momu",
the Fas word for "NO". There is a tradition in the Sepik
region to do so, and I am sympathetic to the idea of another name, but we may wel have to wait till the various villages can come
together and decide on their own name. A change of names has the problem of
breaking a linguistic classificatory tradition, as the language has been called
Fas in all of the preceding literature. Also using the word for "NO"
is potentially problematic in that related languages may employ the very same
term. This is actually the case for Fas, where the closely related language Baibai also uses the negation "Momu".
To be continued!
References:
Introduction to the
Kwomtari People and Language (Honsberger, Murray, Carol Honsberger and Ian Tupper) Introduction
to Kwomtari Phonology (Julia Drew) and Kwomtari Grammar Essentials (Katharine
Spencer) all of them in http://www.sil.org/pacific/png/pubs/50948/Kwomtari_Grammar_Phonology.pdf
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwomtari-Baibai_languages