Ramu Coast

­ Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

The Ramu Coast family consists of five languages spoken along and inland from the north coast of Papua New Guinea near the mouth of the Ramu River, just east of the border between Madang and East Sepik provinces, with Watam also spoken in East Sepik province. It is called the Ottilien Family in the works of Z'graggen, after the name first given to the Ramu River by German explorers (Z'graggen 1969, 1971: 74-75.)

The internal classification of Ramu Coast is as follows:

Ramu Coast

East Ramu Coast

Awar

Bosngun (Bosman)

North Ramu Coast

Bore (Gamei)

Kaian

Watam

Awar and Bosngun are significantly more different from one another than are the languages of the North Ramu Coast subgroup. Foley (p.c. 2020) considers Kaian and Watam to be dialects of the same language.

Z'graggen (1969, 1971: 75) gives lexicostatistical relationships between the languages of the Ottilien Family as follows:

These subgroups are differentiated by a number of mutually exclusive isoglosses:

[under construction]

Pöch (1908: 170-173) grammar sketch and vocabulary of Watam

Ray (1919) …

Capell (1951-1952: 132-138) sketch descriptions of and (pp. 198-200) 83 comparative terms for Watam, Gamai, Bosngun and Nubia (Awar,) with Watam attestations drawn from Pöch (1908)

Höltker (1966) Bosngun …

Z'graggen (1969, 1971: 74-76) … (pp. 90-91) … (pp. 110-118) 120 Kaian singular-plural pairs

Z'graggen (1972) 431 comparative terms for Watam, Kaian, Gamei, Awar and Bosman

Parrish (1989) grammar of Bore

Foley (1992) grammar of Watam (unobtained)

Foley (1999) grammar sketch of Watam

Foley (2005: 116-118) 65 comparative terms for Watam, Kaian, Gamay, Bosmun and Awar and (pp. 118, 119-121) 43 Proto-WAG (i.e. Ramu Coast) reconstructions

Levy (2002) grammar of Awar

[under construction]

[NOTE: values given below are subject to change!]

Proto-Ramu Coast had 15 consonants and … vowels as follows:

…

Only a restricted set of consonants occurs initially:

Only a restricted set of consonants occurs finally:

… stress …

Initial consonants correspond as follows:

…

Medial consonants correspond as follows:

…

Final consonants correspond as follows:

…

Vowels correspond as follows:

…

These correspondences are exemplified as follows, with attestions in the sections following drawn from Z'graggen (1971, 1972) and Levy (2002) unless otherwise indicated. Those drawn from Foley (2005: 116-118) are indicated by [WF]. Some of the comparisons presented below originate with Z'graggen (1971: 90-91) or Foley (2005: 116, 119-121.)

At first glance, Ramu Coast languages allow any consonant to appear initially and these consonants are generally retained in all descandants. However there are a number of examples in which a consonant which appears in the North Ramu Coast languages is absent from the East Ramu Coast languages along with the vowel which follows. This phenomenon has been found with only a few consonants, including nasals /*m *n/ and non-stops /*w *r *j/. Outcomparison to other Ramu languages which likewise preserve an attentuated set of original initial consonants, namely Igom and Tanggu of the Moam River subgroup and Waran (Banaro,) as well as those which drop all initial consonants but usually preserve the following vowels such as the languages of the Goam River subgroup, shows this limited subset to reflect bonafide initial consonants in proto-Ramu River, while the consonants which are not dropped in Awar or Bosngun were originally medial. The frequency of this word shape was increased by a number of loans from the Oceanic language Manam or a near relatiove thereof (below,) although some of them undergo the same process of initial loss.

This situation introduces major complications to the recontruction of Ramu Coast. First, if a root is attested only in North Ramu Coast, it is sometimes impossible to say whether an apparently initial cononant was really initial or had a preceding vowel which has been dropped. Further, loans from Oceanic are pervasive and, because the loaning language(s) in many instances can't have been Manam itself and some are quite ancient, they look nearly indistinguishable from native roots, “moon” being an excellent example. Because many native roots drop initial vowels, thus preserving the erstwhile medial consonant, it is sometimes the case that we cannot be sure if there was an intial vowel or if the word was a loan unless its etymology in either Ramu River or Oceanic is known.

Initial bilabial nasal /*m/ is always retained as such in Watam and Kaian and sometimes lost in Bore and Kaian, its loss possibly conditioned by the character of the following stop. It is always lost in Awar and Bosngun:

Initial apical nasal /*n/ is always retained as such in Watam and only sometimes in Bore and Kaian, its loss possibly conditioned by the character of the following stop. Like intiail bilabial /*m/ (above) it is always lost in Awar and Bosngun:

Initial velar nasal /*ŋ/ …:

Initial bilabial non-stop /*w/ is retained as such in North Ramu Coast and lost in Awar and Bosngun:

Initial apical non-stop /*r/ …:

Initial palatal stop /*j/ has been identified in only one root, where it is retained in Bore and Kaian and lost in Awar and Bosngun. We ssume that it should be retained in Watam but have no examples against which to check this assumption. The reflex /l/ is regular in Bore for medial /*j/ as well (below):

Any consonant can occur medially. Medial consonants include those which prima facie appear to be initial but are secondary as discussed above; these are often shown below with an unspecified intial vowel <*VM> where the quality of the vowel cannot be determined through outcomparison.

Medial bilabial nasal /*m/ is retained as such in all descendants. Where initial vowels have been lost in all attestations, these can look like intiial /*m/ (above) but are distinguished from them because they are not dropped in East Ramu Coast:

… /*m/ …:

Medial apical nasal /*n/ …:

… /*n/ …:

Medial velar nasal /*ŋ/ is generally retained as such in all descendants:

In one example, Awar drops medial /*ŋ/ when followed by final /*n/:

Medial bilabial voiceless stop /*p/ …:

… /*p/ …:

When /*p/ is the initial segment of a suffix, it is lenited to non-stop /w// [w v] in Awar:

Medial apical voiceless stop /*t/ …:

…/*t/ …:

Medial laminal voiceless /*s/ is merged with apical stop /t/ in Bore:

… /*s/ …:

Loans from Manam (below) are likewise affected:

Final /*s/ …:

Initial velar voiceless stop /*k/ …:

…:

Medial …:

Final /*k/ is typically reflected as glottal stop [ʔ] in Awar, Bore and Kaian:

Bosngun reflects final /*k/ as /s/ when following …, an affectation found also in Aruamu (Mikarew) to the southeast:

Prenasalized bilabial stop /*mb/ …:

…

Prenasalized apical stop …:

Laminal voiced prenasalized /*ndz/ …:

… /*ndz/ …:

… /*ndz/ …:

Medial laminal prenasalized voiced /*ndz/ …:

Velar prenasalized voiced stop /*ŋg/ …:

…:

…:

… /*ŋ/ … /*ŋg/ … Outcomparison to Ruboni Range /*gurum/ suggests velar non-stop /*ɣ/:

Medial apical non-stop /*r/ is retained as such in all descendants:

…:

Final /*r/ …:

Initial palatal glide /*j/ is occluded to lateral non-stop /l/ in Bore:

… glide /*w/ …:

…final consonants …:

Final bilabial nasal /*m/ …:

Final apical naasal /*n/ …:

Final velar nasal /*ŋ/ is dropped in Awar, often with nasalization of the preceding vowel:

Final bilabial voiceless stop /*p/ is retained as such in all descendants:

Final apical voiceless stop /*t/ is retained as such in all descendants:

…

… loss of initial vowels … This reduction is nearly invariable in Awar but rarely occurs in Watam:

…

[under construction]

Ramu Coast nominative pronouns are as follows, with all forms drawn from Z'graggen (1972) and Levy (2002: 184-190) as indicated:

Ramu Coast languages have borrowed a number of terms from Manam, or a closely related extinct language, of the Schouten Islands subgroup of Oceanic, with Manam attestations drawn from Turner (1986, 1992, Turner, Manabung, Sagem and Kapata 1986.) In some details, the Ramu Coast words are more archaic than Turner's Manam, but Manam, spoken by 6,000 people (1981) living on Manam island some ten miles off the coast to the east, is the only Oceanic language in the vicinity (Turner 1986: 10, 13.) Several of these may have already been acquired by the breakup of Ramu Coast. Two terms for colors are suffixed with /-r/:

Most words shared with Bogia Bay (q.v. Z'graggen 1972) are probably mutual loans from Manam (above) or a near-relative thereof, with Monumbo attestations drawn from Vormann and Scharfenberger (1914) :

…: