Sepik Iwam language

Sepik Iwam, or Yawenian, is a language of Papua New Guinea. It is the lexical basis of the Hauna trade pidgin.

Sepik Iwam
Yawenian
Region	East Sepik Province
Native speakers	2,500 (2000 census)[1]
Language family	Sepik Upper Sepik Iwam Sepik Iwam
Language codes
ISO 639-3	iws
Glottolog	sepi1255
ELP	Sepik Iwam[2]
Coordinates: 4.29131°S 142.006892°E

Hauna pidgin
Region	East Sepik Province
Native speakers	None
Language family	Iwam-based pidgin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Glottolog	haun1238
ELP	Sepik Iwam[2]

It is spoken in villages such as Iniok (4.29131°S 142.006892°E) in Tunap-Hunstein Rural LLG of East Sepik Province.[3][4]

Phonology

Sepik Iwam consonants are:[5]

p	t	k
b	d	ɡ
s			h
m	n
	r
w	j

Sepik Iwam vowels are:[5]

i		u
e	ə	o
a

Pronouns

Sepik Iwam pronouns:[5]^:282

	sg	du	pl
1	ka	kərar	kəram
2	kə	kow	kom
3m	si	sow	səm
3f	sa

Grammar

Sepik Iwam subject agreement suffixes are:[5]

	singular	dual	plural
masculine	*-ən	*-o	*-əm
feminine	*-a

The structure of this subject agreement paradigm can be traced back to Proto-Sepik, although the morphemes themselves do not seem to be directly related to the reconstructed Proto-Sepik forms. (See also Sepik languages#Gender.)

References

1. Sepik Iwam at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Endangered Languages Project data for Sepik Iwam.
3. Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2019). "Papua New Guinea languages". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (22nd ed.). Dallas: SIL International.
4. United Nations in Papua New Guinea (2018). "Papua New Guinea Village Coordinates Lookup". Humanitarian Data Exchange. 1.31.9.
5. Foley, William A. (2018). "The Languages of the Sepik-Ramu Basin and Environs". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 197–432. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.

Further reading

• "Organised Phonology Data" (PDF). Cite journal requires |journal= (help)