Yimas language
| Yimas | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Papua New Guinea |
| Region | East Sepik Province |
|
Native speakers
|
300 (2000) |
|
Ramu–Lower Sepik
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | yima1243 |
| Yimas Pidgin | |
|---|---|
|
Native speakers
|
None |
|
Yimas-based pidgin
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
None (mis) |
| Glottolog |
yima1235 Yimas-Alamblak Pidginyima1244 Yimas-Arafundi Pidginyima1246 Yimas-Iatmul Pidginyima1245 Yimas-Karawari Pidgin
|
The Yimas language is spoken by the Yimas people of Papua New Guinea. It is a polysynthetic language with (somewhat) free word order. It is an ergative-absolutive language morphologically but not syntactically, although it has several other case-like relations encoded on its verbs. It has 10 or 11 noun classes (genders), and a unique number system. Four of the noun classes are semantically determined (male humans, female humans, higher animals, plants and plantmaterial) whereas the rest are assigned on phonological bases.
It is an endangered language, being widely replaced by Tok Pisin, and to a lesser extent, English, and it is unclear if any children are native Yimas speakers. However, a Yimas pidgin was once used as a contact language with speakers of Alamblak and Arafundi.
The phoneme inventory of Yimas is typical for the languages of Papua New Guinea. Like many languages of the region, Yimas has no fricative phonemes, although fricatives do sometimes appear in pronunciation as variants of plosives. The following table contains the phonemes of the language.
The phonemic status of the palatal consonants /c/, /ɲ/ and /ʎ/ (the latter is written as l in the examples) is not entirely clear. In general their appearance is predictable; they arise primarily through palatization of the alveolar consonants /t/, /n/, and /r/. However, there are a few words in which these consonants must be regarded as underlyingly palatal. Examples include akulɨm (wrist), ɨɲcɨt (urine), and other words, though these historically go back to alveolar consonants, as can be seen in their cognates in Karawari (awkurim (wrist) and sɨndi (urine)).
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