Meriam language
Encyclopedia
Meriam is the language of the people of Mer (Murray Island), Waier and Dauar, Erub (Darnley Island) and Ugar (Stephens Island
) in the Torres Strait
, Queensland
, Australia
. In the Western-Central Language of Torres Strait (Kala Lagaw Ya
), it is generally called Mœyam, or Mœyamau Ya.
. It has, however, around 25 percent common vocabulary with its Torres Strait Island neighbour Kala Lagaw Ya
, which is an Australian language. There are some very minor vocabulary influences of Melanesian, Polynesian (in particular Rotuman
), Indonesian, Filipino, Japanese and European origin. Many such outsiders were recruited – or in some cases black-birded – in the 19th century for pearl diving, and other marine work.
Meriam was placed in the Eastern Trans-Fly family
of Trans–New Guinea by Stephen Wurm
, who however felt that these have retained remnants of pre-TransNG languages, and this is followed by Ethnologue
(2005). In 2005 Malcolm Ross
concluded that the Eastern Trans-Fly languages were not part of the Trans–New Guinea phylum, but kept the family itself with Meriam as a member. R.M.W. Dixon (2002) regards claims of a relationship between the Fly River languages and Meriam as unproven, though what he bases his claim on is not clear, as Meriam Mir has a high cognation rate with its sister language, and a certain amount of mutual intelligibility is claimed by Meriam speakers. Such cognates include the personal pronouns, verbs, nominals, verbal and nominal morphology, cultural vocabulary, and so on.
The other Eastern Trans-Fly languages are Bine, Gizra, and Wipii (also known as Gidra).
islands, characterised in part by the retention of phonemic distinctions between 'ng', 'g', 'n' and 'r' where these have fallen together in two ways in Meriam Mir. The sound 'ng' in Modern Meriam has become 'n' at the beginning of words and 'g' within words; 'n' in general has become 'r' within words. The earliest records (early 19th century) of Meriam Mìr, which were actually in the Erub dialect, Erubim Mìr, included the phrase debe lang good taste/nice, where lang is identical to the Gizra lang of the same meaning. In present-day Meriam Mìr the phrase is debe lag.
The sounds represented by [a] and [ə] are allophonic. Schwa appears mainly in syllables BEFORE the stress accent and optionally in open unstressed syllables otherwise. [a] appears in stressed syllables and in unstressed closed syllables.
is contrastive in Meriam and can occur on the first or second syllable. Examples are tábo snake and tabó neck
Stephens Island
Stephens Island may refer to:* Stephens Island , Queensland, Australia* Stephens Island , Queensland, Australia* Stephens Island , Canada* Stephens Island , Canada* Stephens Island, New Zealand...
) in the Torres Strait
Torres Strait
The Torres Strait is a body of water which lies between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is approximately wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost continental extremity of the Australian state of Queensland...
, Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. In the Western-Central Language of Torres Strait (Kala Lagaw Ya
Kala Lagaw Ya
Kala Lagaw Ya is a language belonging to all the western and central Torres Strait Islands, Queensland, Australia. On some islands it has now largely been replaced by Brokan...
), it is generally called Mœyam, or Mœyamau Ya.
Classification
Although Meriam is located in Australian territory, it is classified as a Papuan languagePapuan languages
The Papuan languages are those languages of the western Pacific which are neither Austronesian nor Australian. The term does not presuppose a genetic relationship. The concept of Papuan peoples as distinct from Melanesians was first suggested and named by Sidney Herbert Ray in 1892.-The...
. It has, however, around 25 percent common vocabulary with its Torres Strait Island neighbour Kala Lagaw Ya
Kala Lagaw Ya
Kala Lagaw Ya is a language belonging to all the western and central Torres Strait Islands, Queensland, Australia. On some islands it has now largely been replaced by Brokan...
, which is an Australian language. There are some very minor vocabulary influences of Melanesian, Polynesian (in particular Rotuman
Rotuman
Rotuman may refer to:*anything related with the island Rotuma*Rotuman people*Rotuman language...
), Indonesian, Filipino, Japanese and European origin. Many such outsiders were recruited – or in some cases black-birded – in the 19th century for pearl diving, and other marine work.
Meriam was placed in the Eastern Trans-Fly family
Eastern Trans-Fly languages
The Eastern Trans-Fly languages are a small independent family of Papuan languages in the classification of Malcolm Ross, that constituted a branch of Stephen Wurm's 1970 Trans-Fly proposal, which he later incorporated into his 1975 expansion of the Trans–New Guinea family as part of a Trans-Fly –...
of Trans–New Guinea by Stephen Wurm
Stephen Wurm
Stephen Adolphe Wurm was a Hungarian-born Australian linguist.- Biography :Wurm was born in Budapest, the second child to the German-speaking Adolphe Wurm and Hungarian-speaking Anna Novroczky, and was christened Istvan Adolphe Wurm...
, who however felt that these have retained remnants of pre-TransNG languages, and this is followed by 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...
(2005). In 2005 Malcolm Ross
Malcolm Ross
Malcolm David Ross is a linguist and professor at the Australian National University. He has published work on Austronesian and Papuan languages, historical linguistics, and language contact.-External links:**...
concluded that the Eastern Trans-Fly languages were not part of the Trans–New Guinea phylum, but kept the family itself with Meriam as a member. R.M.W. Dixon (2002) regards claims of a relationship between the Fly River languages and Meriam as unproven, though what he bases his claim on is not clear, as Meriam Mir has a high cognation rate with its sister language, and a certain amount of mutual intelligibility is claimed by Meriam speakers. Such cognates include the personal pronouns, verbs, nominals, verbal and nominal morphology, cultural vocabulary, and so on.
The other Eastern Trans-Fly languages are Bine, Gizra, and Wipii (also known as Gidra).
Dialects
The language is dialectless. However, formerly there was a separate dialect spoken on Erub and UgarStephens Island (Torres Strait)
Stephens Island is an Australian island situated in the eastern section of Torres Strait, near the Great Barrier Reef and North of Coconut/Poruma Island and North West of Murray Island, Torres Strait and West of Darnley Island....
islands, characterised in part by the retention of phonemic distinctions between 'ng', 'g', 'n' and 'r' where these have fallen together in two ways in Meriam Mir. The sound 'ng' in Modern Meriam has become 'n' at the beginning of words and 'g' within words; 'n' in general has become 'r' within words. The earliest records (early 19th century) of Meriam Mìr, which were actually in the Erub dialect, Erubim Mìr, included the phrase debe lang good taste/nice, where lang is identical to the Gizra lang of the same meaning. In present-day Meriam Mìr the phrase is debe lag.
- 'ng' > 'n' at the beginning of a word : Erub ngenkep, Mer nerkep heart (ngen/ner breath, kep body part, (cf. Kala Lagaw Ya ngœnakaapu, ngœna breath + kaapu body part)
- 'ng' > 'g' within and at the eng of a word : Erub debe lang > Mer debe lag; Erub denger, Mer deger dugong (cf. Kala Lagaw Ya dhangal)
- Erub ngeng, Mer neg, Bine ngango laugh.
- 'n' > 'n' at the beginning of a word : Erub naiger > Mer naiger North-East
- 'n' > 'r' in the middle and at the end of a word : Erub ngenkep > Mer nerkep heart
Vowels
| 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... |
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 (i) | u (u) |
| Retracted High | ɪ (ì) | ʊ (ù) |
| 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 (e) | o (o) |
| Low | a, ə (a) | ɔ (ò) |
The sounds represented by [a] and [ə] are allophonic. Schwa appears mainly in syllables BEFORE the stress accent and optionally in open unstressed syllables otherwise. [a] appears in stressed syllables and in unstressed closed syllables.
Consonants
| 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:... |
Dental Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Alveo-Palatal Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Velar Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
Voiceless | p | t | k | |
| Voiced | b | d | ɡ | ||
| 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 | n | |||
| 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... |
Voiceless | s | |||
| Voiced | z | ||||
| Lateral 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 | ||||
| Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... /Tap Flap consonant In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:... |
r | ||||
| Semivowel Semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:... |
w | j | |||
Stress
StressStress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
is contrastive in Meriam and can occur on the first or second syllable. Examples are tábo snake and tabó neck
External links
- Opolera Wetpur Anglican Holy Communion service in Meriam
- Ethnologue report for language code:ulk