Mehek language
Encyclopedia
Mehek is a Tama language
spoken by about 6300 people in a somewhat mountainous area along the southern base of the Torricelli Mountains
in northwestern Papua New Guinea
. Mehek is spoken in six villages of Sandaun Province: Nuku
, Yiminum, Mansuku, Yifkindu, Wilwil, and Kafle. Mehek is most closely related to Pahi, with 51% lexical similarity, and spoken approximately 20 kilometers to the southwest. Mehek is a fairly typical Papuan language, being verb-final, having a relatively simple phonology, and agglutinative morphology. There is very little published information about Mehek. The literacy rate in Tok Pisin
, spoken by nearly everyone, is 50-75%. Mehek is not written, so there is no literacy in Mehek. Tok Pisin is primarily used in the schools, with 50% children attending.
/h/ occurs word-initially before vowels or between identical vowels (Me’ek), and a phrase meaning “our language” (indinumgo suma).
of Mehek is relatively simple. It has a five-vowel system, much like many of the non-Austronesian languages of Papua New Guinea, in addition to two diphthongs. The consonant system is also fairly simple, containing 15 phonemes. Voiced stops are almost always prenasalized, though this effect is much weaker word-initially. The tables below list the consonant and vowel phonemes. In the list of vowels, the phones in parentheses are allophones.
Tama languages
The Tama languages are a small family of closely related languages of northern Papua New Guinea. They are generally classified among the Sepik languages.The languages are Ayi, Pasi, Pahi, Mehek, and Yessan-Mayo....
spoken by about 6300 people in a somewhat mountainous area along the southern base of the Torricelli Mountains
Torricelli Mountains
Torricelli Mountains is a mountain range in Sandaun Province, northwestern Papua New Guinea. The highest peak in the range is Mount Sulen at 1650 meters. The Bewani Mountains are located to the west, and the Prince Alexander Mountains are located to the east...
in northwestern 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...
. Mehek is spoken in six villages of Sandaun Province: Nuku
Nuku (Papua New Guinea)
Nuku, also known as Nuku Station, is the capital of Nuku District in Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea. The district is the tertiary level of political division within Papua New Guinea, after the national and provincial levels...
, Yiminum, Mansuku, Yifkindu, Wilwil, and Kafle. Mehek is most closely related to Pahi, with 51% lexical similarity, and spoken approximately 20 kilometers to the southwest. Mehek is a fairly typical Papuan language, being verb-final, having a relatively simple phonology, and agglutinative morphology. There is very little published information about Mehek. The literacy rate in 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...
, spoken by nearly everyone, is 50-75%. Mehek is not written, so there is no literacy in Mehek. Tok Pisin is primarily used in the schools, with 50% children attending.
Alternate Names
Mehek is also known as Nuku, Me’ek, Driafleisuma, and Indinogosima The speakers themselves refer to the language as Mehek, which is the word meaning “no.” The alternate names derive from the primary village where it is spoken (Nuku), a phonological variant: epentheticEpenthesis
In phonology, epenthesis is the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially to the interior of a word. Epenthesis may be divided into two types: excrescence, for the addition of a consonant, and anaptyxis for the addition of a vowel....
/h/ occurs word-initially before vowels or between identical vowels (Me’ek), and a phrase meaning “our language” (indinumgo suma).
Phonology
The phonologyPhonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
of Mehek is relatively simple. It has a five-vowel system, much like many of the non-Austronesian languages of Papua New Guinea, in addition to two diphthongs. The consonant system is also fairly simple, containing 15 phonemes. Voiced stops are almost always prenasalized, though this effect is much weaker word-initially. The tables below list the consonant and vowel phonemes. In the list of vowels, the phones in parentheses are allophones.
Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Palatal | Velar | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stops | p b | t d | k ɡ | |
| Fricatives | f | s | ||
| Nasals | m | n | ŋ | |
| Approximants | (w) | l r | j | (w) |
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i (ɪ) (ɨ) | u (ʊ) | |
| Mid | e (ɛ) | o (ɔ) | |
| Low | a | ||
| Diphthongs | ai | au | |
Verbs
Mehek has medial and final verbs, only the latter of which take any morphological marking. In a given utterance, there can be any number of medial verb forms. They must precede the final verb and have the same subject as the final verb. Whenever a new subject is introduced, a new final verb form must be used (with a possible string of medial verbs preceding it). There are two past and two future tenses. The Recent Past and the Near Future apply to yesterday and tomorrow, respectively. The Distant Past and Distant Future are used for any day before yesterday or after tomorrow, respectively. The formula for a final verb is: stem+tense+person+interrogative. The interrogative marker is optional and consists of a suffix –a on the end of any verb form. The other suffixes are as follows:| Singular | Dual | Plural | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | -(yu)n | -dun | -num |
| 2nd person | -n | -fun | -kum |
| 3rd person | -r (masc.) -s (fem.) |
-f | -m |
| Tense | Form |
|---|---|
| Distant Past | -m- |
| Recent Past | -wa- |
| Present | -ya- |
| Near Future | -kya- |
| Distant Future | -ka- |
Nouns
Nominal morphology is fairly straightforward, each noun only taking a single suffix. Nouns can also appear in their base form. Every noun is specified for gender, masculine or feminine, though the respective gender affix is not obligatory. Living things have natural gender, while plants and inanimate objects have morphological gender. There are five possible affixes a singular noun can take. Nouns in the dual or plural can only be marked for number, and these affixes are obligatory where appropriate.| Singular Inflection | Form |
|---|---|
| Masculine | -r |
| Feminine | -s |
| Diminutive | -t |
| Locative/Instrumental | -k |
| Vocative | -n |
| Non-Singular Inflection | Form |
|---|---|
| Dual | -f |
| Plural | -m |
Pronouns
Mehek pronouns occur in singular, dual and plural number and have different subject and object forms. Mehek also has a series of imperative pronouns which are distinct in the 1st and 3rd persons and are used in commands and suggestions (let’s...).| Subject Pronuns | Singular | Dual | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | on | dun | num |
| 2nd person | nu | fun | kum |
| 3rd person | ru (masc.) su (fem.) |
fu | mu |
| Object Pronouns | Singular | Dual | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | ene | nende | nemen |
| 2nd person | ne | kefen | kemen |
| 3rd person | re (masc.) te (fem.) |
fe | me |
| Imperative Pronouns | Singular | Dual | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | ana | anda | ama |
| 2nd person | nu | fun | kum |
| 3rd person | or (masc.) os (fem.) |
of | om |
Possession
Possession is indicated by the morpheme -ko-/-go-. This morpheme takes a prefix that agrees with the possessor in person and number and a suffix that agrees with the possessed in number only. (Gender agreement does occur in both, but only for 3rd person singular entities.) The prefixes are virtually identical to the verbal person suffixes, and the suffixes are identical to the noun suffixes.Numerals
The counting system is a restricted system, with only three morphemes combining in different ways to count as high as 24. In practice, though, any number above five will be given in Tok Pisin and numbers above ten are difficult for speakers to recall. The morpheme for “five” is related to the word for “fist.” Numbers above five are combinations of lower numbers up to 15, when a new term is introduced which can then be used for combinations up to 24. This term is related to the word for fist, but with the morpheme for “foot” (suwa) replacing the morpheme for “hand” (lesu). As an example of how the morphemes are combined, 14 is rendered as “5,” “5,” “4.”| 1 | dirambur |
| 2 | lasif |
| 3 | lasifirndin |
| 4 | lasifu lasifu |
| 5 | yokolesumbutu |
| 15 | yokosuwambutu |
Syntax
The following are some brief facts about Mehek syntax and word order:- Canonical word order is subject–object–verb (SOV), though there is some freedom within this.
- Transitivity is a semantic property of verbs and there are no syntactic restrictions or morphological marking on nouns or verbs that distinguishes a transitive verb from an intransitive one.
- There is no copulaCopulaIn linguistics, a copula is a word used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate . The word copula derives from the Latin noun for a link or tie that connects two different things.A copula is often a verb or a verb-like word, though this is not universally the case...
. - Though adjectives are a sub-class of verbs, when modifying nouns they typically follow the noun, as do numerals.
- Demonstratives, on the other hand, typically precede the noun.
- Most clauses contain multiple verbs, with different medial and final forms (see Verbs above).
- Possession with a 1st, 2nd or a pronominal 3rd person possessor will have the possessive word following the noun and no morphological marking on the noun.
- Possession with a nominal 3rd person possessor will have the possessor first, then the possessive word, then the possessed, also with no morphological marking.
- All clauses are marked with an aspect particle, the realis marker “ka” by far the most common. The irrealis marker “wa” is the second most common. This particle typically comes between the subject and object.
- Negated verbs of all person and tense categories take the suffix –nak, which replaces all other suffixes. The negative word “iki” is also required and typically precedes the subject.