Usarufa language

Usarufa
Region	Okapa District, Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea
Native speakers	(1,300 cited 1996)[1]
Language family	Trans–New Guinea Kainantu–Goroka Kainantu Gauwa Usarufa
Language codes
ISO 639-3	usa
Glottolog	usar1243
Imikori Village, from Moife Hill

Usarufa is a Kainantu language spoken by the people of the same name in Papua New Guinea. It belongs to the Gauwa branch of the Kainantu family of the Kainantu–Goroka languages. The language area consists of six villages: Moife, Imikori, Irafo, Kagu, Agura 1, and Agura 2. Its ISO 639 code is usa.

As of 2009, the language was reported to have had about 1200 speakers and no fluent speakers below the age of 25, which makes it an endangered language.

Phonology

This section is derived from the analyses presented in Bee 1965 in which an inventory of eighteen consonants is favoured.^[2]

Usarufa consonant phonemes

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	plain	p	t		k	ʔ
	glottalised	ˀp	ˀt		ˀk
Nasal	plain	m	n
	glottalised	ˀm	ˀn
	geminate	mː	nː
Approximant	plain	w	ɾ	j
	glottalised	ˀw		ˀj

The distribution of these consonants is determined by their position within a stress group, a segment which has one primary stress, the placement of which is determined by a pitch contour. This stress group may consist of two or more syllables. Only /p t k m n w j/ can occur as the onset of a stress group, and only /ʔ/ can occur finally. In stress-medial position all consonant phonemes can occur, and /p k/ are realised as [β] and [ɣ], respectively. /ɾ/ may be realised as [ɺ].

An alternative analysis treats all glottalised and geminate consonants as secondary, in which case there are only nine consonant phonemes:

Usarufa consonant phonemes, alternative analysis

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p	t		k	ʔ
Nasal	m	n
Approximant	w	r	j

Usarufa has an unremarkable five-vowel system.

Usarufa vowel phonemes

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

/i/, /e/, and /a/ have the allophones [ɪ], [ɛ] and [ʌ], respectively. /e/ may be realised as [ɪ] following coronal or palatal phonemes.

See also

• Vida Chenoweth, who studied the Usarufa music
• Aikuma, mobile software for language recording, first used to record Usarufa

References

1. Usarufa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Bee, Darlene (1965). "Usarufa Distinctive Features and Phonemes" (PDF). In Bee, Darlene (ed.). Papers in New Guinea Linguistics 4. Pacific Linguistics Series A. Vol. 6. Australian National University. pp. 39–68. doi:10.15144/PL-A6.39.

External links

• Chenoweth, Vida. "The Usarufas and Their Music" (PDF).
• OLAC Resources in and about the Usarufa Language
• Bird, Steven. "Experiencing language death". Language Log. Retrieved 2009-06-26.
• Paradisec has a collection of Stephen A Wurm's materials (SAW3) that include Usarufa materials.