Sulka is spoken along the coastal region of Wide Bay,[4] on the Southern coast of the Gazelle Peninsula,[6] on the eastern side of New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea. Some estimate speakers to number as high as between 3,000 and 3,500.[7][4] Reesink (2005) reports on some Sulka speakers who have intermingled in neighboring villages with speakers of other languages such as Mali, southeast of Kokopo.[4]
Classification
Sulka may be described as having ancient Papuan (non-Austronesian) roots, which additionally displays morphosyntactic constructions and some vocabulary items associated with the Oceanic branch of Austronesian (i.e. languages of the St. George linkage such as Mali).[8] Alternatively, it has been proposed as possibly related to Kol or Baining as part of the East Papuan proposal, but Palmer (2018) treats Sulka as a language isolate.[9]
Over 3,000 to 3,500 years ago, the linguistic ancestors of Sulka speakers arrived in the Papua New Guinea area.[2]
History
Although the history of the language is not well known, it may display a mixture of Oceanic and Papuan language traits.[10] These are languages Sulka came into contact with, when the peoples speaking these other languages populated the area in neighboring villages, around 3,200 years ago.[11]
Phonology
Consonants
The phonological system of Sulka comprises 28 contrasting segments, fourteen consonants, and seven vowels.[4] On the topic of consonants, there is no recent evidence to support contrast between [b] and [β], therefore they're assumed to be allophones and are represented in the table of consonants as [β] only.[4]
For its vowels, Sulka has a contrast between three front vowels: high, mid, and low, [i], [e], and [ε], but there is no instance of the central high vowel [ɨ].[4] However, when it comes to vocalic contrasts, it is not always clear. The mid front vowel may fluctuate somewhere between close-mid [e] and the more central-close vowel [ɪ], pronounced like English i in 'in'.[4] The sounds [o] and [u] often fluctuate with each other as in the example of '1SG verbal pronoun' [ku] and [ko]. This pattern of fluctuation seems to commonly occur for high front vowels. When looking at the length of vowels, long vowels are often confused with diphthongs.
A great majority of Sulka's lexicon is not Oceanic/Austronesian as stated by Schneider. However, there are a few words that are shared between both Papuan and Oceanic.
Examples from Geelvink (2005):
pun 'base', as in a ho ka pun 'the tree its base', reflects POC
puqun. Laufer (1955:42) gives Mengen pun ~ Gunantuna (= Tolai) vuna as evidence for the presence of Mengen speakers along the Wide Bay before Sulka speakers arrived from South New Ireland. But Sulka pun is not a recent Mengen loan. Rath (1986, ex. 324) gives bega pu-na for 'tree base-3SG.POSS'.
nut 'island' ~ POC *nusa, with reflexes such as nui in NNG and nua in PT, nuta in Southeast Solomonic (Ross, Pawley, and Osmond 2003:42).
kus 'rain' appears to reflect POC *qusan (Ross, Pawley, and Osmond 2003:141); with kue as reflex in Mengen (Poeng dialect).
kopoi 'fog' ~ POC
kapu(t); *kopu (Ross, Pawley, and Osmond 2003:140).
malo 'skirt made of bark from the breadfruit tree'. The Sulka form is identical to the one found in Mengen and Kove of the North New Guinea linkage, rather than to mal as it appears in languages of the St. George linkage. Of course, it may be a recent direct borrowing from Mengen.[4]
Nouns
Selected Sulka nouns showing singular and plural forms (Tharp 1996: 161-163):[12]
Basic verb phrases are similar to Oceanic languages. For a typical Austronesian sentence structure, it follows the subject-verb-object word order whereas Papuan follows a subject-object-verb word order. Free pronouns mainly act as verbal or prepositional object. Instead of having the bilabial nasal found on the free pronouns, first and third person plural have an initial velar.[4] Additionally, the basic verb phrase begins with a subject proclitic indicating both subject person/number and aspect/mood. This is followed by one or more verbs, a (pro)nominal object where necessary, and optional oblique constituents.[4]
Kua
Ku-a
1SG-IPFV
pater
pat-er
think-TR
yen
yen
2SG
orom
orom
with
o
o
PL
Sulka
Sulka
Sulka
nga
nga
3SG.POSS
re.
re
talk
Kua pater yen orom o Sulka nga re.
Ku-a pat-eryen orom o Sulka nga re
1SG-IPFV think-TR 2SG with PL Sulka 3SG.POSS talk
"I am teaching you the Sulka language"
According to Reesink (2005), the most common future form he recorded was the same one identified previously. He cites this work by Schneider (1942:323) where this form was named a separate modal particle er(a).[4]
Ngiera
Ngi=er=a
2SG.IRR-FUT-IPFV
vokong
vokong
see
a
a
SG
ho
ho
tree
lang
lang
certain
to
to
that
nera
n=er=a
3SG.IRR-FUT-IPFV
hurpis.
hur-pis
appear-arrive
Ngiera vokong a ho lang to nera hurpis.
Ngi=er=a vokong a ho lang to n=er=a hur-pis
2SG.IRR-FUT-IPFV see SG tree certain that 3SG.IRR-FUT-IPFV appear-arrive
"You will see a certain tree sprouting."
Habitual aspect and conditional mood utilize the same forms as the irrealis, both for 1SG and 2SG. In contrast, all of the other forms have more in common with the future pronouns because they also lack 3SG -t. Below, see examples of the habitual and the conditional, respectively:
Koma
Ko=ma
1SG=HAB=IPFV
vle
vle
stay
ma
ma
LOC
Mlavui
Mlavui
Mlavui
kun
kun
inside
mnam
mnam
inside
a
a
SG
rengmat
rengmat
village
to
to
that
e
e
ART
Guma.
Guma
Guma
Koma vle ma Mlavui kun mnam a rengmat to e Guma.
Ko=ma vle ma Mlavui kun mnam a rengmat to e Guma
1SG=HAB=IPFV stay LOC Mlavui inside inside SG village that ART Guma
"I am staying at Mlavui inside the village Guma."
Kopa
Ko=pa=a
1SG=COND=IPFV
ya
ya
good
va
va
and
kopa
Ko=p=a
1SG=COND=IPFV
ngae.
ngae
go
Kopa ya va kopa ngae.
Ko=pa=a ya va Ko=p=a ngae
1SG=COND=IPFV good and 1SG=COND=IPFV go
"If I had been well, I would have gone."
Grammatical gender
Most Papuan languages have masculine and feminine distinctions. However, the Sulka language does not follow this rule. As for the Austronesian languages, where they have inclusive and exclusive opposition in nonsingular first person, Sulka does not follow them either (Sulka of East New Britain: A Mixture of Oceanic and Papuan Traits, Reesink, 2005). As stated by Reesink, "There is not even a third person differentiation between feminine and masculine genders".
^ abcdefghijklmnReesink, Ger. 2005. Sulka of East New Britain: A Mixture of Oceanic and Papuan Traits. Oceanic Linguistics 44. 145-193.
^ abcStebbins, Tonya; Evans, Bethwyn; Terrill, Angela (2018). "The Papuan languages of Island Melanesia". 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. 775–894. ISBN978-3-11-028642-7.
^Tharpe, Douglas (1996). "Sulka Grammar Essentials". SIL International Publications. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
^Palmer, Bill (2018). "Language families of the New Guinea Area". 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. 1–20. ISBN978-3-11-028642-7.
^Tharp, Douglas. 1996. Sulka grammar essentials. In John M. Clifton (ed.), Two non-Austronesian grammars from the islands, 77-179. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Foley, William A. The Papuan Languages of New Guinea. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986.
