Tayap language: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 18:56, 2 May 2020

Revision as of 02:15, 13 June 2020

Line 31:

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"/>{{rp|16}}

Gapun villagers 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 replaced by [[Tok Pisin]].<ref name="harvp|Kulick|1992">{{harvp|Kulick|1992}}</ref>

Unlike the neighboring patrilineal [[Lower Sepik-Ramu languages|Lower Sepik-Ramu]] speakers, Tayap speakers are matrilineal.<ref>{{ name="harvp|Kulick|1992}}<"/ref> 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"/>{{rp|349}}

==Classification==

Tayap is a [[language isolate]]. 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>{{Citation |last=Laycock |first=D.C.|title=Sepik Languages - Checklist and Preliminary Classification |publisher=Pacific Linguistics |year=1973 |series=Pacific Linguistics B-25 |___location=Canberra |doi=10.15144/pl-b25}}</ref>

Kulick and Terrill (2019) found no evidence that Tayap is related to any other language of New Guinea. The comparative vocabulary table below, adapted from Kulick and Terrill (2019: 11-12) and Foley (2005),<ref name="Foley-Sepik-Ramu">{{cite book | last = Foley | first = William A. | authorlink = William A. Foley | year = 2005 | chapter = Linguistic prehistory in the Sepik-Ramu basin | title = Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples | ___location = Canberra | publisher = Pacific Linguistics | isbn = 0858835622 | oclc = 67292782 | editor = [[Andrew Pawley]] | editor2 = Robert Attenborough | editor3 = Robin Hide | editor4 = Jack Golson | pages = 109&ndash;144 }}</ref>, demonstrates the lexical aberrancy of Tayap as compared to the surrounding [[Lower Sepik languages]].<ref name="Kulick-Terrill"/> Cultural vocabulary such as 'village', 'canoe', 'oar', and 'lime', as well as the words for 'water' and 'eat', are shared with Lower Sepik languages. The word 'moon' is also shared with [[Kopar language|Kopar]]. However, most basic vocabulary items have no cognates in surrounding languages.

:{| class="wikitable sortable"

Line 151:

|}

Tayap has 6 vowels, which are:<ref name="Kulick-Terrill"/>

Tayap has 6 vowels, which are:<ref name="Kulick-Terrill">{{cite book |last=Kulick |first=Don |last2=Terrill |first2=Angela |title=A Grammar and Dictionary of Tayap: The Life and Death of a Papuan Language |series=Pacific Linguistics 661 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter Inc. |year=2019 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VXWcDwAAQBAJ|isbn=9781501512209 |___location=Boston/Berlin}}</ref>

:{| {{table}}

Line 162:

==Pronouns==

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

Tayap pronouns are:<ref name="Kulick-Terrill">{{cite book |last=Kulick |first=Don |last2=Terrill |first2=Angela |title=A Grammar and Dictionary of Tayap: The Life and Death of a Papuan Language |series=Pacific Linguistics 661 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter Inc. |year=2019 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VXWcDwAAQBAJ|isbn=9781501512209 |___location=Boston/Berlin}}</ref>

:{| {{table}}

Line 181:

==Grammar==

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 conjugation classes, both in terms of membership and formal marking.

There is a fundamental distinction in verbal morphology between realis and irrealis stems and suffixes. Grammatical relations are marked by verbal suffixes, which distinguish Subject/Agent (S/A) and Object (O). In some conjugations S/A is marked by discontinuous morphemes. Free pronouns and noun phrases mark the ergative case (A) compared to unmarked forms for the absolutive (S/O). As in many Papuan languages which have an ergative case, the ergative marker is optional and is frequently omitted.

Line 434:

{{language families}}

[[Category:Tayap language| ]]

[[Category:Endangered Papuan languages]]

[[Category:Tayap language]]

[[Category:Sepik Coast languages]]

[[Category:Languages of East Sepik Province]]