Massep (Masep, Potafa, Wotaf) is a poorly documented Papuan language spoken by fewer than 50 people in the single village of Masep in West Pantai District, Sarmi Regency, Papua. Despite the small number of speakers, however, language use is vigorous. It is surrounded by the Kwerba languages, namely Airoran and Samarokena.
Classification Clouse, Donohue, and Ma (2002) did not notice connections to any other language family. Ethnologue, Glottolog, and Foley (2018) list it as a language isolate. Usher classifies it as Greater Kwerbic.Usher, Timothy. West Foja Range. New Guinea World. The pronouns are not dissimilar from those of Trans–New Guinea languages, but Massep is geographically distant from that family.
Phonology Consonants: {| class="wikitable IPA" | || t || c || k |- | || || || kʷ |- | || || || ᵑɡ |- | ɸ || s || ʃ || |- | β || || || ɣ |- | m || n || ɲ || |- | || r || || |- | w || || j ||
Some probable consonant leniting sound changes from pre-Massep proposed by Foley (2018): *p > ɸ *b > β *d > r *k > ɣ (perhaps partially)
Vowels: {| class="wikitable IPA" | i || u |- | e || o |- | a ||
Pronouns Pronouns are:
! !! sg !! pl |- ! 1 | ka || nyi |- ! 2 | gu || je |- ! 3 | evi || ive
Morphology Massep case suffixes as quoted by Foley (2018) from Clouse (2002):
! suffix !! case |- | -o ~ -u ~ -a || accusative |- | -ɣoke || dative |- | -aveno || instrumental |- | -meno || associative |- | -(a)vri || locative |- | -ni || allative |- | -a || temporal
Sentences Massep sentences as quoted by Foley (2018) from Clouse (2002):
Word order is SOV.
References
External links
Timothy Usher & Mark Donohue, Masep, New Guinea World