Bukawa is an Austronesian

Austronesian languages

The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...

 language spoken by about 10,000 people (in 1978) on the coast of the Huon Gulf

Huon Gulf

Huon Gulf is a large gulf in eastern Papua New Guinea, at . It is bordered by Huon Peninsula in the north. Both are named after French explorer Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec. Huon Gulf is a part of the Solomon Sea. Lae, capital of the Morobe Province is located on the northern coast of the...

, Morobe Province

Morobe Province

Morobe Province is a province on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. The provincial capital, and largest city, is Lae. The province covers 34,500 km², including 719 km² maritime area, with a population of 539,725...

, Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

. The most common spelling of the name in both community and government usage is Bukawa (Eckermann 2007:1), even though it comes from the Yabem language

Yabem language

Yabem or Jabêm is an Austronesian language spoken natively by about 2000 people at the southern tip of the Huon Peninsula in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea...

, which served as a church and school lingua franca

Lingua franca

A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...

 in the coastal areas around the Gulf for most of the 20th century. This ethnonym

Ethnonym

An ethnonym is the name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms and autonyms or endonyms .As an example, the ethnonym for...

, which now designates Bukawa-speakers in general, derives from the name of a prominent village on the Bugawac ('River Gawac') at Cape Arkona in the center of the north coast.

Ethnologue

Ethnologue

Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...

 notes that 40% of Bukawa speakers are monolingual (or perhaps were in 1978). This claim is hard to credit unless one discounts both Tok Pisin

Tok Pisin

Tok Pisin is a creole spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an official language of Papua New Guinea and the most widely used language in that country...

, the national language of Papua New Guinea, and Yabem

Yabem language

Yabem or Jabêm is an Austronesian language spoken natively by about 2000 people at the southern tip of the Huon Peninsula in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea...

, the local Lutheran mission lingua franca. The anthropologist Ian Hogbin, who did fieldwork in the large Bukawa-speaking village of Busama on the south coast shortly after World War II, found that everyone was multilingual in three languages: Tok Pisin, Yabem, and their village language (Hogbin 1951).

Vowels (orthographic)

Bukawa distinguishes the eight vowel qualities. The central mid vowel is rounded, while the low vowel is unrounded.

	Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...	Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel...	Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
High	i		u
Upper mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...	ê		ô
Lower mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...	e	ö	o
Low		a

Consonants (orthographic)

Glottal stop, written with a c as in Yabem

Yabem language

Yabem or Jabêm is an Austronesian language spoken natively by about 2000 people at the southern tip of the Huon Peninsula in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea...

, is only distinctive at the end of syllables. The only other consonants that can occur syllable-finally are labials and nasals: p, b, m, ŋ. Syllable-structure constraints are most easily explained if labialized and prenasalized consonants are considered unit phonemes rather than clusters. The distinction between voiced (vd) and voiceless (vl) laterals and approximants is unusual for Huon Gulf languages

Huon Gulf languages

The thirty Huon Gulf languages of Papua New Guinea may form a group of the North New Guinea languages, perhaps within the Ngero–Vitiaz branch of that family.-Classification:...

.

	Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...	Coronal Coronal consonant Coronal consonants are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical , laminal , domed , or subapical , as well as a few rarer orientations, because only the front of the tongue has such...	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....	Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
Voiceless stop	p / pw	t	k / kw	-c
Voiced stop	b / bw	d / dw	g / gw
Prenasalized (vd/vl) Prenasalized consonant Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent that behave phonologically like single consonants. The reasons for considering these sequences to be single consonants is in their behavior, not in their actual composition...	mb / mp	nd / nt	ŋg / ŋk
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...	m / mw	n	ŋ
Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...		s		h
Lateral (vd/vl) Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth....		l / lh
Approximant (vd/vl) Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...	w / wh	y / yh

Tone contrasts

Vowels are further distinguished by high or low pitch. The latter is marked orthographically by a grave accent. These distinctions in tone

Tone (linguistics)

Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...

 are thus based on register tone, not contour tone as in Mandarin Chinese. Register tone contrasts are a relatively recent innovation of the North Huon Gulf languages

North Huon Gulf languages

The family of North Huon Gulf languages is a subgroup of the Huon Gulf languages of Papua New Guinea. It consists of 3 languages, all of which are distinguished by severe truncation of many inherited roots and the compensatory development of suprasegmentals on vowels: phonemic tone in Yabem and...

. While tone is somewhat predictable in Yabem

Yabem language

Yabem or Jabêm is an Austronesian language spoken natively by about 2000 people at the southern tip of the Huon Peninsula in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea...

, where low tone correlates with voiced obstruents and high tone with voiceless obstruents, Bukawa has lost that correlation. Nor does Bukawa tone correlate predictably with Yabem tone. Compare Yab. low-tone awê 'woman' and Buk. high-tone awhê 'woman', both presumably from POc *papine (or *tapine).

High Tone (linguistics) Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...	Low Tone (linguistics) Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
akwa 'canoe side support'	akwà 'old'
atu 'offspring, baby' (POc *ñatu)	atù 'big'
dinaŋ 'my mother' (POc *tina)	dinàŋ 'that'
êŋgili 'stirs up'	êŋgilì 'steps over'
huc 'pig net'	hùc 'bear fruit'
mbac 'bird' (POc *manu)	mbàc 'to rub'
ŋasi 'jaw'	ŋasì 'fat'
puŋ 'press by hand'	pùŋ 'make flat by adze'
siŋ 'canoe sideboard'	sìŋ 'fight'
tam 'edible greens'	tàm 'dew'
tuŋ 'garden fence'	tùŋ 'cause pain'

Free pronouns

Person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...	Singular Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....	Plural Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....	Dual Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
1st person inclusive		hêclu ~ yêclu	yac
1st person exclusive	aö	alu	yac
2nd person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...	am	mac ~ mwac	amlu
3rd person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...	iŋ	ŋac	iŋlu ~ lu

Genitive pronouns

The short, underdifferentiated genitive forms are often disambiguated by adding the free pronoun in front.

Person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...	Singular Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....	Plural Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....	Dual Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
1st person inclusive		(hêclu) neŋ	(yac) neŋ
1st person exclusive	(aö) neŋ ~ aneŋ	(alu) mba	(yac) mba
2nd person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...	(am) nem	(mac) nem	(amlu) nem
3rd person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...	(iŋ) ndê	(ŋac) si	(iŋlu) si

Numerals

Traditional counting practices started with the digits of one hand, then continued on the other hand, and then the feet to reach '20', which translates as 'one person'. Higher numbers are multiples of 'one person'. Nowadays, most counting above '5' is done in Tok Pisin. As in other Huon Gulf languages

Huon Gulf languages

The thirty Huon Gulf languages of Papua New Guinea may form a group of the North New Guinea languages, perhaps within the Ngero–Vitiaz branch of that family.-Classification:...

, the short form of the numeral 'one' functions as an indefinite article.

Numeral Numeral system A numeral system is a writing system for expressing numbers, that is a mathematical notation for representing numbers of a given set, using graphemes or symbols in a consistent manner....	Term	Gloss
1	tigeŋ / daŋ	'one'
2	lu	'two'
3	tö	'three'
4	hale	'four'
5	amaŋdaŋ / limdaŋ	'hand-one'
6	amaŋdaŋ ŋandô-tigeŋ	'hand-one fruit-one'
7	amaŋdaŋ ŋandô-lu	'hand-one fruit-two'
8	amaŋdaŋ ŋandô-tö	'hand-one fruit-three'
9	amaŋdaŋ ŋandô-hale	'hand-one fruit-four'
10	amaŋlu / sahuc	'hands-two / ten'
15	sahuc ŋa-lim	'ten its-five'
20	ŋgac sambuc daŋ	'man whole one'
60	ŋgac sambuc tö	'man whole three'

Names

Like most of the languages around the Huon Gulf, Bukawa has a system of birth-order names (Holzknecht 1989: 43-45). The seventh son is called "No Name": se-mba 'name-none'. Compare Numbami

Numbami language

Numbami is an Austronesian language spoken by about 300 people with ties to a single village in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. Numbami is a phonologically conservative isolate within the Huon Gulf languages, and is the last Austronesian language on the south coast of the Huon Gulf...

.

Birth order	Sons	Daughters
1	Aliŋsap	Gali'
2	Aliŋam	Ika
3	Aŋgua'	Ayap
4	Aluŋ	Dam
5	Dei	Hop
6	Selep	Dei
7	Semba