• Source: 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. It is spoken in 10 villages, including Panaras village (3.122883°S 151.485644°E / -3.122883; 151.485644 (Panaras)) 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.: 29  Geographical coordinates are also provided for each village.

Kama (2.977267°S 151.501072°E / -2.977267; 151.501072 (Kama))
Bol (2.996383°S 151.537008°E / -2.996383; 151.537008 (Bol)) (mixed with Nalik speakers)
Fanafiliuo
Liedan (3.021238°S 151.585456°E / -3.021238; 151.585456 (Liedan Village))
Kabi (3.067025°S 151.680387°E / -3.067025; 151.680387 (Kabil))
Naiama (3.063228°S 151.434449°E / -3.063228; 151.434449 (Naiama))
Panaras (3.122883°S 151.485644°E / -3.122883; 151.485644 (Panaras))
Naliut (3.14398°S 151.547271°E / -3.14398; 151.547271 (Neiruaran))
Nakalakalap (3.14398°S 151.547271°E / -3.14398; 151.547271 (Neiruaran))
Patlangat (3.159597°S 151.591463°E / -3.159597; 151.591463 (Patlangat))
Bimun (3.167725°S 151.604444°E / -3.167725; 151.604444 (Bimun))
Combined, the two villages of Naliut and Nakalakalap are known as Neiruaran (3.14398°S 151.547271°E / -3.14398; 151.547271 (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).




Status


Kuot is an endangered language and most children, if not all, grow up speaking Tok Pisin instead.




Phonology






= Consonants

=




= 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.



Allophones





= Morphophonemic Alternations

=



't' to 'r' Alternation

The phoneme /t/ in certain possessive markers, such as "-tuaŋ", "-tuŋ" and "-tuo" becomes /r/ 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 [aˈmaŋɔŋ], not [aˈmaŋaɔŋ].



Voicing Rule

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

/obareit-oŋ/ [obaˈreidoŋ] he splits it
/taɸ-o/ [taˈβo] he drinks
/marik-oŋ/ [maˈriɡoŋ] he prays
The phoneme /p/ becomes [β], not [b].

/sip-oŋ/ [ˈsiβɔŋ] it comes out
/irap-a/ [iˈraβa] her eyes




Grammar


Kuot is the only Papuan language that has VSO word order, similar to Irish and Welsh.: 920  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 parak-oŋ ira-ruaŋ kamin 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):




Vocabulary


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




See also


East Papuan languages




References






External links


Kuot language word list at TransNewGuinea.org
Kuot Swadesh 100 Word List Archived 2013-11-10 at the Wayback Machine
Kuot word list (Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database)

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Rumpun bahasa Papua
• Kuot language
• Notsi language
• Meso-Melanesian languages
• Papuan languages
• List of language families
• East Papuan languages
• List of endangered languages in Papua New Guinea
• Language isolate
• KTO
• Tikana Rural LLG