The Mussau-Emira language is spoken on the islands of Mussau and Emirau in the St Matthias Islands in the Bismarck Archipelago.
Phonology
Phonemes
Consonants
Mussau-Emira distinguishes the following consonants. BilabialAlveolarVelarNasalPlosiveFricativeLiquid
Fricative sounds may also be heard as voiced stop sounds in word-initial position and when geminated.
Vowels
Front Central Back High Mid Low
Stress
In most words the primary stress falls on the penultimate vowel and secondary stresses fall on every second syllable preceding that. This is true of suffixed forms as well, as in níma 'hand', nimá-gi 'my hand'; níu 'coconut', niúna 'its coconut'.
Morphology
Pronouns and person markers
Free pronouns Person Singular Plural Dual Trial Paucal 1st person inclusive ita italua itatolu itaata 1st person exclusive agi ami aŋalua aŋatolu aŋaata 2nd person io am amalua amatolu amaata 3rd person ia ila ilalua ilotolu ilaata
Subject prefixes Prefixes mark the subjects of each verb: (agi) a-namanama 'I'm eating' (io) u-namanama 'you're (sing.) eating' (ia) e-namanama 'he's/she's eating'
Sample vocabulary
Numbers
kateva galua kotolu gaata galima gaonomo gaitu gaoalu kasio kasaŋaulu
References
Further reading Blust, Robert (1984). "A Mussau vocabulary, with phonological notes." In Malcolm Ross, Jeff Siegel, Robert Blust, Michael A. Colburn, W. Seiler, Papers in New Guinea Linguistics, No. 23, 159-208. Series A-69. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Ross, Malcolm (1988). Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian languages of western Melanesia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Mussau Grammar Essentials by John and Marjo Brownie (Data Papers on Papua New Guinea Languages, volume 52). 2007. Ukarumpa: SIL.
External links Kaipuleohone has archived a word list of Mussau language Materials on Mussau-Emira are included in the open access Arthur Capell (AC1) and Malcolm Ross (MR1) collections held by Paradisec.