Tayap language: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|Endangered Papuan language}}

{{Infobox language

| name = Tayap

| nativename = ''{{lang|gpn|Tayap mer}}''

| states = [[Papua New Guinea]]

| region = [[Gapun]] village, [[Marienberg Rural LLG]], [[East Sepik|East Sepik Province]]

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| ref = e18

| familycolor = Papuan

|fam1 = [[Torricelli languages|Torricelli]]<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20221005221941/https://newguineaworld.linguistik.uzh.ch/families/torricelli-range-sepik-coast/sepik-coast/taiap Taiap] New Guinea World.</ref> or language isolate

| fam1=[[Unclassified language|Unclassified]], [[language isolate]] or [[Torricelli languages|Torricelli]]<ref name=ngw/>

| fam2 = Sepik Coast

|fam3 = Tayap–Marienberg

| iso3 = gpn

| glotto = taia1239

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| pushpin_map = Papua New Guinea

}}

{{GeoGroup}}

{{GeoGroupTemplate}}

'''Tayap''' (also spelled '''Taiap'''; called '''Gapun''' in earlier literature, after the name of the village in which it is spoken) is an [[endangered language|endangered]] Papuan language spoken by fewer than 50 people in [[Gapun]] village of [[Marienberg Rural LLG]] in [[East Sepik Province]], [[Papua New Guinea]] ({{coord|-4.028746|144.50304|name=Gapun|type:city_region:PG}}, located just to the south of the [[Sepik River]] mouth near the coast).<ref name="Ethnologue22-PNG">{{Cite web |date=2019 |editor-last=Eberhard |editor-first=David M. |editor2-last=Simons |editor2-first=Gary F. |editor3-last=Fennig |editor3-first=Charles D. |title=Papua New Guinea Languages |url=https://www.ethnologue.com/country/PG/languages |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190603020858/https://www.ethnologue.com/country/PG/languages |archive-date=2019-06-03 |access-date=2019-06-03 |website=[[Ethnologue]]: Languages of the World |publisher=[[SIL International]] |___location=Dallas |edition=22nd}}</ref><ref name="UN-PNG">{{Cite web |last=United Nations in Papua New Guinea |date=2018 |title=Papua New Guinea Village Coordinates Lookup |url=https://data.humdata.org/dataset/village-coordinates-lookup |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190605192333/https://data.humdata.org/dataset/village-coordinates-lookup |archive-date=2019-06-05 |access-date=2019-06-07 |website=Humanitarian Data Exchange |version=1.31.9}}</ref> It is being replaced by the national language and [[lingua franca]] [[Tok Pisin]].

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The first European to describe Tayap was {{ill|Georg Höltker|de}}, a German missionary-linguist, in 1937. Höltker spent three hours in the village and collected a word list of 125 words, which he published in 1938. He wrote that “it will be awhile before any other researcher ‘stumbles across’ Gapun, if only because of the small chances of worthwhile academic yields in this tiny village community, and also because of the inconvenient and arduous route leading to this linguistic island”.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Höltker |first=Georg |author-link=Georg Höltker |date=1938 |title=Eine fragmentarische Wörterliste der Gapún-Sprache Neuguineas |journal=Anthropos |language=en |volume=33 |issue=1/2 |pages=279–282 |jstor=41103168}}</ref>

Höltker's list was all that was known about Tayap in literature until the early 1970s, when the Australian linguist [[Donald Laycock]] travelled around the lower Sepik to collect basic vocabulary lists that allowed him to identify and propose classifications of the many languages spoken there. Tayap and its speakers have been extensively studied by linguistic anthropologist [[Don Kulick]] since the mid-1980s. The language is described in detail in ''Tayap Grammar and Dictionary: The Life and Death of a Papuan Language'' and in ''A Death in the Rainforest: How a Language and a Way of Life Came to an End in Papua New Guinea''.<ref name="Kulick & Terrill 2009">{{harvpsfnp|Kulick|Terrill|2019}}</ref><ref>{{harvp|Kulick|2019}}</ref>

Until World War II, when Japanese soldiers occupied the area and caused the villagers to flee into the rainforest, [[Gapun]] was located on a hill that several thousand years earlier had been an island in the sea that receded and formed the lower Sepik River. This indicates that Tayap may be the descendant of an ancient, autochthonous language that was already in place before the various waves of migration from the inland to the coast began occurring thousands of years ago.<ref>{{harvp|Ross|2005}}</ref> Foley (2018) also speculates that Tayap could have been part of a larger language family that was spoken on the island before the arrival of Lower Sepik speakers. As the coastline moved further northeast, Lower Sepik speakers migrated from the foothills into the new land areas created by the receding waters.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Foley |first=William A. |title=The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide |date=2018 |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton |isbn=978-3-11-028642-7 |editor-last=Palmer |editor-first=Bill |series=The World of Linguistics, Vol. 4 |___location=Berlin |pages=197–432 |language=en |chapter=The Languages of the Sepik-Ramu Basin and Environs |author-link=William A. Foley}}</ref>

==Sociolinguistics==

Up to 2018, [[Gapun]] was the only village where Tayap is spoken, although some speakers of the language also lived in neighboring villages such as Wongan and Watam, having moved there because of marriage or as a result of conflicts over land or sorcery in Gapun. However, in 2018, Gapun village was burned down and abandoned due to violence among households. The former residents fled to the nearby villages of Wongan ({{coord|-3.999326|144.532123|type:city_region:PG|name=Wongan}}), Watam ({{coord|-3.906592|144.545246|type:city_region:PG|name=Watam}}), and Boroi.<ref name="Kulick & Terrill 2009" />{{rpsfnp|Kulick|Terrill|2019|p=16}}

As a result of colonial activity<ref name=":0">,{{Cite book sfnp|last=Kulick |first=Don |title=A Death in the Rainforest |publisher=Algonquin Books |year=2019 |isbnpp=978-1616209049 |pages=182-188182–188}}</ref>, Gapun villagers subconsciously associate Tok Pisin with Christianity, modernity and masculinity, and they associate Tayap with paganism, "backwardness" , disruptive femininity and childish stubbornness. As a result, Tayap is being increasingly, but neither consciously nor deliberately, replaced by [[Tok Pisin]],<ref name="harvp|Kulick|1992">{{harvp|Kulick|1992}}</ref>, even though the villagers all express positive sentiments towards it and insist that they want their children to speak the language.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite book sfnmp|last=Kulick |first2019|1pp=Don 182–188|title2a1=A Grammar and Dictionary of Tayap Kulick|publisher2a2=Pacific Linguistics Terrill|year2y=2019 |isbn2pp=978-1-5015-1757-0 |pages=1-31–3}}</ref> Villagers express bewilderment towards the fact that their children no longer actively speak Tayap, and believe that they have, out of stubbornness, decided to reject Tayap entirely, and that they have chosen to speak Tok Pisin instead.<ref name{{sfnp|Kulick|2019|pp=":0" />182–188}}

Unlike the neighboring patrilineal [[Lower Sepik-Ramu languages|Lower Sepik-Ramu]] speakers, Tayap speakers are matrilineal.<ref name="harvp|Kulick|1992" /> Tayap is typologically very different from the neighboring Lower Sepik-Ramu languages.

Tayap also has many loanwords from the [[Kopar language|Kopar]] and [[Adjora language|Adjora]] languages.<ref name="Kulick & Terrill 2009" />{{rpsfnp|Kulick|Terrill|2019|p=349}}

==Classification==

Tayap is not related to the neighboring Lower Sepik languages, though a relationship to the more distant [[Torricelli languages|Torricelli]] family has been proposed by Usher (2020).<ref name="ngw">[https://sitesnewguineaworld.googlelinguistik.com/site/newguineaworlduzh.ch/families/torricelli-range-sepik-coast/sepik-coast/taiap New Guinea World – Taiap]</ref>

In the 1970s Australian linguist [[Donald Laycock]] classified Tayap (which he called "[[Gapun]]") as a sub-phylum of the Sepik-Ramu language phylum, on the basis of Georg Höltker's 1938 word list and a few verb paradigms that Laycock gathered from two speakers.<ref>{{harvp|Laycock|1973}}</ref>

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==Phonology==

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"

|+ Consonants<ref name="{{sfnp|Kulick & |Terrill 2009" />|2019}}

! colspan="2" |

! [[Labial consonant|Labial]]

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|-

! {{small|prenasal}}

| {{IPA link|ᵐb}} <mb>⟨mb⟩

| {{IPA link|ⁿd}} <nd>⟨nd⟩

|{{IPA link|ⁿdʒ}} <nj>⟨nj⟩

|

| {{IPA link|ᵑɡ}} <ŋg>⟨ŋg⟩

|-

! colspan="2" | [[Fricative]]

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|

|

| {{IPA link|j}} <y>⟨y⟩

|

|}

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"

|+ Vowels<ref name="{{sfnp|Kulick & |Terrill 2009" />|2019}}

!

! [[Front vowel|Front]]

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|-

! [[Mid vowel|Mid]]

| {{IPA link|ɛ}} <e>⟨e⟩

| {{IPA link|ɵ}}~{{IPA link|ø}} <ɨ>⟨ɨ⟩

| {{IPA link|ɔ}} <o>⟨o⟩

|-

! [[Back vowel|Back]]

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==Pronouns==

Tayap free pronouns in absolutive case, and object suffixes in the realis, are:{{sfnp|Kulick|Terrill|2019}}

Tayap pronouns are:<ref name="Kulick & Terrill 2009" />

:{| {{table}}

|+Free pronouns

! !! sg !! pl

|-

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|-

! 3m

| ŋɨ || rowspan=2|ŋgɨ

|-

! 3f

| ŋgu || ŋgɨ

|}

:{| {{table}}

|+Object suffixes

! !! sg !! du !! pl

|-

! 1

| -i || rowspan=2 colspan=2| -mɨ

|-

! 2

| -u

|-

! 3m

| -ŋgɨ || rowspan=2| -mɨ || rowspan=2| -mbɨ

|-

! 3f

| -ku

|}

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Like many Sepik languages, Tayap is a [[synthetic language]]. Verbs are the most elaborated area of the grammar. They are complex, [[fusional]] and massively [[suppletive]], with opaque verbal morphology including unpredictable [[Grammatical conjugation|conjugation class]], both in terms of membership and formal marking.

ThereTayap is a fundamental distinction in verbal morphologydistinguishes between [[realis]] and [[irrealis]] stems and suffixes. Grammatical relations are marked by verbalVerbal suffixes, whichdistinguish distinguishbetween Subject/Agent (S/A) and Object (O)., In some conjugations S/Awhich is marked by discontinuous morphemes. Freein pronounssome andconjugations. noun phrases mark theThe [[ergative case]] (A) comparedis tomarked unmarkedby formsfree forpronouns and noun phrases, while the [[absolutive]] (S/O) does not have marked forms. As in many ergative Papuan languages which have an ergative case, the ergative marker is optionalnot andalways included, as it is frequently omittedoptional.{{sfnp|Kulick|Terrill|2019|p=25}}

===Nouns===

Nouns generally do not mark number themselves, although there is a small class of largely human nouns which mark plural, and a smaller class which mark [[dual (grammatical number)|dual]]. These categories, where marked, are largely marked by partial or full suppletion. [[Oblique case]]s, largely local, are marked by [[clitic]]s attached to the end of the oblique [[noun phrase]].<ref name="{{sfnp|Kulick & |Terrill 2009" />|2019}}

===Gender===

Like many languages of the [[Sepik]]-[[Ramu]] basin (particularly the [[Sepik languages]]), Tayap has masculine and feminine genders.

There are two genders, masculine and feminine, marked not on the noun itself but on [[deictic]]s, the ergative marker, suppletive verbal stems and verbal affixesobject suffixes. The unmarked, generic form of all nouns, including animate nouns, even humans, is feminine: however, a male referent may be masculine. Another criterion is size and shape: long, thin and large referents tend to be masculine; short, stocky and small referents tend to be feminine. This type of gender-assignment system is typical of the Sepik region. Gender is only ever marked in the singular, never in the dual or plural.

==Lexicon==

Selected Tayap words from {{harvp|Kulick and |Terrill (|2019: |pp=442–454)}}:

===Vertebrates===

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|}

In Tayap, a felled [[Metroxylon sagu|sago palm]] tree can be divided into 7 parts. The Tayap names are listed below, from the base (''wot'') to the crown (''mar'').<ref name="Kulick & Terrill 2009" />{{rpsfnp|Kulick|Terrill|2019|p=454}}

*''wot''