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Kalam is a Kalam language of Papua New Guinea. It is closely related to Kobon, and shares many of the features of that language. Kalam is spoken in Middle Ramu District of Madang Province and in Mount Hagen District of Western Highlands Province.[2]
Thanks to decades of studies by anthropologists such as Ralph Bulmer and others, Kalam is one of the best-studied Trans-New Guinea languages to date.
There are two distinct dialects of Kalam that are highly distinguishable from each other.[3]
Kobon is closely related.
Kalam has an elaborate pandanus avoidance register used during karuka harvest that has been extensively documented. The Kalam pandanus language, called alŋaw mnm (pandanus language) or ask-mosk mnm (avoidance language), is also used when eating or cooking cassowary.[4]
Below are some Kalam reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea proposed by Pawley (2012, 2018).[3][6][7][8] Data is from the Etp dialect unless otherwise noted. Data from Ti, the other major dialect, is also given when noted.
Kalam has eight tense-aspect categories. There are four past tenses, two present tenses, and two future tenses, which are all marked using suffixes:[7]
Intransitive verbs in Kalam can be classified as either active or stative. Some active intransitive verbs are:[7]
Some stative verbs are:[7]
Transitivity is derived using resultative or cause-effect serial verb constructions.[7]
pak
strike
sug-
extinguished
pak sug-
strike extinguished
‘put out a fire’
wk-
shattered
pak wk-
strike shattered
‘knock something to bits, shatter something’
pug
blow
pug sug-
blow extinguished
‘blow out a flame’
puŋi
pierce
ask-
opened
puŋi ask-
pierce opened
‘prise something open’
lak-
split
puŋi lak-
pierce split
‘split something by wedging or levering’
taw
step.on
pag
broken
yok-
displaced
taw pag yok-
step.on broken displaced
‘break something off by stepping on it’
tb
cut
kluk
gouge
tb kluk yok-
cut gouge displaced
‘gouge something out’
Other serial verb constructions in Kalam include:[7]: 117
Some examples of nominal compounds in Kalam:[7]
bin-b
woman-man
‘person, people’
ña-pañ
son-daughter
‘child, children’
aps-basd
grandmother-grandfather
‘grandparents’
ami-gon
mother-children
bapi-gon
father-children
ami-gon bapi-gon
mother-children father-children
‘nuclear family, parents and children’
kmn-as
game.mammal-small.wild.mammal
‘wild mammals’
kaj-kayn-kobti
pig-dog-cassowary
‘large animals’
kmn-kaj-kobti
game.mammal-pig-cassowary
‘animals that provide ceremonially valued meat’
mñ-mon
vine-tree
‘land, country, territory, world’
kneb
sleeping
ameb
going
owep
coming
wog
garden
wati
fence
gep
making
kneb ameb owep wog wati gep
sleeping going coming garden fence making
‘everyday activities’
Fauna classification (folk taxonomy) in the Kalam language has been extensively studied by Ralph Bulmer and others. Kalam speakers classify wild mammals into three major categories:[7]
Other animal categories are:[7]
Rodent names include:[6]
Marsupial names include:[6]
Reptile names and folk taxonomy in Kalam:[10]
Frog names in Kalam are:[9]
Note: Cophixalus shellyi, Choerophryne darlingtoni, and Oxydactyla brevicrus also tend to be identified by Kalam speakers as lk if calling from low vegetation, but as gwnm (usually applied to Cophixalus riparius and Xenorhina rostrata) if found in daytime hiding spots.[9]
Plant categories include:[7]
A comprehensive list of Kalam plant and animal names is given below.[6]
Kalam speakers distinguish more than a dozen color categories.[6]
Pawley and Bulmer (2011), quoted in Pawley and Hammarström (2018), lists the following temporal adverbs in Kalam.[7][6]
Kalam, like English, has different types of rhyming compounds.[7]