Irarutu language
| Irarutu | |
|---|---|
| Irahutu | |
| Kasira | |
| Native to | Indonesia |
| Region | Bomberai Peninsula |
|
Native speakers
|
(4,000 cited 1987) |
|
Austronesian
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | irar1238 |
Irarutu, Irahutu, or Kasira, is an Austronesian language of most of the interior of the Bomberai Peninsula of New Guinea. The name “Irarutu” comes from the language itself, where “ira” conjoins with “ru” to create “their voice”. When put together with “tu”, which on its own means “true”, the meaning of the name becomes “Their true voice” or “The people’s true language”.
Kuri is very close lexically, but has not been formally classified. Other than this, Irarutu is quite divergent among the Central Malayo-Polynesian languages. Irarutu is one of the many languages found in the South Halmahera subgroup of Austronesian languages. There are seven variations found within the language: Nabi, Babo, Kasuri, Fruata, South-Arguni, East-Arguni, North-Arguni.
Irarutu follows the "Subject, Verb, Object" (SVO) format in word order. Adjectives such as "big" or a numbered value come after the noun, but for lineage-related matters the initial ancestor comes before the descendant.
b
d
ɟ
g
/p, t, c, k, b, d, ɟ, g, are all stops with /p, t, c, k/ being voiceless and /b, d, ɟ, g,/ being voiced. All stop consonants can be placed in any position (beginning, middle, or end) with the exception of /c/ which cannot be placed in the ending position.
/f, s, h/ are all voiceless fricatives. /f/ is found in all 3 positions and is sometimes pronounced as a voiced /v/ due to biological features of Native Irarutu speakers. /s/ is also found in all 3 positions but is never voiced. /h/ is a new consonant sound which may have come from Arabic or a nearby dialect. /h/ is only found in initial and middle positions.
/m, n/ are both voiced nasals. Both consonants are found in all 3 positions.
/r/ is found in most Irarutu dialects, but is sometimes switched out with /l/.
ɪ
7 types of vowels are found in Irarutu, /a, e, ɪ, i, o, u, y/. The vowels can then be formed in two different ways, one being monophthongs and the other being diphthongs. Monophthongs are a single sounding vowel while diphthongs are a combination of two separate vowels. All 7 vowels can be used in monophthong form but diphthong is restricted to only a few combinations.
Nouns are words that can be placed in the “Subject” or “Object” portions of a sentence and can be modified for possessive relations. There are 3 functions of noun phrases: semantic function, pragmatic function, and grammatical function. In Irarutu, the grammatical function for nouns and pronouns do not differ for unique situations.
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