Maklew language

Maklew
Maklew
Makleunga
Region	South Papua
Native speakers	(undated figure of 120)
Language family	Trans-Fly – Bulaka River? Bulaka River Maklew; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mgf
Glottolog	makl1246
ELP	Maklew

Maklew (alternative names include Maklèw, Makleu, and Makaleo) is a language of the proposed Trans-Fly – Bulaka River family in South Papua, Indonesia. It is known to be spoken in Welbuti village, Merauke Regency.^[2] It is thought to be closely related to the Yelmek Language.^[2]

The Maklew language is thought to be spoken in the Woboyo (Woboyu) and Dodalim villages, but this is unconfirmed. Some Maklew-speaking Welbuti villagers claim that the language is also spoken with the exact same dialect in the villages of Bibikem and Wanam, although these villages are notably listed as Yelmek-speaking by linguistics who have studied the two languages. According to surveyors, few people still speak the Maklew language. Adults in the Welbuti village claim that while the children can still understand Maklew, they speak Indonesian and make fun of adults for using Maklew. This has caused concern among the village adults who are worried that the language could soon die out. The language also faces outside threats such as heavy influence from the Marind Language, as does Yelmek. Again, this is of great concern to the adults, who are reportedly interested in pursuing the idea of preserving their language, although it is still unknown if enough educated people can be found to help start a language program. ^[3]

Phonology

Drabbe (1950: 549) gives 15 consonants and 8 vowels for Maklèw as follows:^[4]

Consonants
		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k
Plosive	prenasalized	ᵐb	ⁿd		ᵑɡ
Fricative		f	s			h
Approximant		w	l	j

Vowels
	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	y*	u
Close-Mid	e		o
Open-Mid	ɛ	ə**
Open		a

⠀*It is unclear if "y" on the chart is the fronted /y/, central /ʉ/, or even close-mid /ø/.

⠀**/ə/ is sometimes used to break up consonant clusters.

References

^ Maklew at Ethnologue (8th ed., 1974). Note: Data may come from an earlier edition.
^ ^a ^b Evans, Nicholas (2018). "The languages of Southern New Guinea". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 641–774. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
^ Lebold, Randy, Ronald Kriens and Peter Jan de Vries. 2010. Report on the Okaba Subdistrict survey in Papua, Indonesia. SIL International.
^ "Maklew - newguineaworld". sites.google.com. Retrieved 2021-08-15.