Kuot language

The Kuot language, or Panaras, is a language isolate, the only non-Austronesian language spoken on the island of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Lindström (2002: 30) estimates that there are 1,500 fluent speakers of Kuot. Perhaps due to the small speaker base, there are no significant dialects present within Kuot.Chung, Chul-Hwa & Chung, Kyung-Ja, Kuot Grammar Essentials, 1993:p1 It is spoken in 10 villages, including Panaras village () of Sentral Niu Ailan Rural LLG in New Ireland Province.

Locations Kuot is spoken in the following 10 villages. The first five villages are located on the eastern coast, and the last five on the western coast in New Ireland.Lindström, Eva. 2002. Topics in the Grammar of Kuot. Ph.D. dissertation, Stockholm University. Geographical coordinates are also provided for each village. Kama () Bol () (mixed with Nalik speakers) Fanafiliuo Liedan () Kabi () Naiama () Panaras () Naliut () Nakalakalap () Patlangat () Bimun ()

Combined, the two villages of Naliut and Nakalakalap are known as Neiruaran (). Most of the villages are located in Sentral Niu Ailan Rural LLG, though some of the eastern villages, such as Kama and Bol, are located in Tikana Rural LLG.

The Kuot variety described by Lindström (2002) is that of Bimun village.

Language contact Lenition in some Austronesian languages of New Ireland, namely Lamasong, Madak, Barok, Nalik, and Kara, may have diffused via influence from Kuot (Ross 1994: 566).Ross, Malcolm. 1994. Areal phonological features in north central New Ireland. In: Dutton and Tryon (eds.) Language contact and change in the Austronesian world, 551–572. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Status Kuot is an endangered language and most children, if not all, grow up speaking Tok Pisin instead.Eva Lindström (November 12, 2002). "Kuot Language and Culture". Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University. Retrieved October 14, 2016. p. 102.

Phonology

Consonants The following table contains Kuot's consonants: BilabialAlveolarVelarNasal ~ Plosive voiceless voiced Fricative voiceless ~ ~ voiced ~Lateral Flap

Vowels

The vowels /i/ and /u/ tend to become glide-vowels in occurrence with other vowels. The length of the vowels is not making differences for the meaning of words. The appearance of /i/ and /u/ with other vowels can not be seen as diphthong or a combination of vowel and glide-vowel. There are never more than three vowels per syllable. The combination of diphthong and vowel is also possible but they are pronounced in conditions of the syllable. Diphthongs are spoken like one sound.

The following table contains Kuot's vowels:

FrontBack Close Mid Open Phoneme Allophones

Morphophonemic alternations

't' to 'r' alternation

The phoneme in certain possessive markers, such as "-tuaŋ", "-tuŋ" and "-tuo" becomes when it comes after a stem ending in a vowel. Compare:

ira-ruaŋ – my father luguan-tuaŋ – my house i'rama-ruo – my eye nebam-tuaŋ – my feather

Vowel shortening

Where the third person singular masculine suffix "-oŋ" is used on a noun that ends with a vowel, this vowel is typically not pronounced. For instance, "amaŋa-oŋ" is pronounced , not .

Voicing rule

When vowel-initial suffixes are added to stems that end in voiceless consonants, those consonants become voiced. For example:

he splits it he drinks he prays

The phoneme becomes , not .

it comes out her eyes

Grammar Kuot is the only Papuan language that has VSO word order.

The morphology of the language is primarily agglutinative. There are two grammatical genders, male and female, and distinction is made in the first person between singular, dual, and plural, as well as between exclusive and inclusive.

For instance, the sentence literally means 'my father eats sweet potato'. Parak-oŋ is a continuous aspect of the verb meaning 'to eat', ira means 'father', -ruaŋ is a suffix used to indicate inalienable possession ('my father'), and kamin is a simple noun meaning 'sweet potato'.

Noun declensions Kuot nouns can be singular, dual, or plural. Below are some noun declension paradigms in Kuot (from Stebbins, et al. (2018), based on Lindström 2002: 147–146):

! Class !! Noun root !! Gloss !! Singular !! Plural !! Dual |- | 1 || ‘plain’ || road || alaŋ || alaŋip || alaŋip-ien |- | 2 || ma || eye || irəma || irəp || irəp-ien |- | 3 || na || base (e.g. of tree) || muana || muap || muap-ien |- | 4 || bun || hen || puraibun || purailəp || purailəp-ien |- | 5 || bu || breadfruit tree || opəliobu || opələp || opələp-ien |- | 6 || uom || banana || pebuom || pebup || pebup-ien |- | 7 || bam || rib || binbam || binbəp || binbəp-ien |- | 8 || nəm || village || pianəm || pialap || pialap-ien |- | 9 || nim || name || bonim || bop || bop-ien |- | 10 || m || nit || dikkam || dikkəp || dikkəp-ien |- | 11 || n || weed || kaun || kaulup || kaulup-ien

Vocabulary The following basic vocabulary words are from Lindström (2008),Lindström, Eva. 2008. Field Notes. as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:

{| class="wikitable sortable" ! gloss !! Kuot |- | head || bukom |- | hair || kapuruma |- | ear || kikinəm |- | eye || irəma |- | nose || akabunima; ŋof |- | tooth || laukima |- | tongue || məlobiem |- | louse || ineima |- | dog || kapuna |- | bird || amani; kobeŋ |- | egg || dəkər; səgər |- | blood || oləbuan |- | bone || muanəm |- | skin || kumalip; neip; pəppək |- | breast || sisima |- | man || mikana; teima |- | woman || makabun |- | sky || panbinim |- | moon || uləŋ |- | water || burunəm; danuot |- | fire || kit |- | stone || adəs |- | road, path || alaŋ |- | name || bonim |- | eat || o; parak |- | one || namurit |- | two || narain

Kuot language

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