Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute
[under contruction]
Mikarew (Makarub) is spoken by … people living in the Bogia subdistrict of Papua New Guinea's Madang Province.
[under contruction]
Pöch (1908: 158) 8 terms for Alépapun
Ray (1919) …
Schorr (n.d.) dictionary of Mikarew (unobtained)
Capell (1951-1952: 138-141) grammar sketch and (pp. 198-200) 73 comparative terms for Makarub
Z'graggen (1969, 1971: ) … (pp. 90-91) 13 comparative terms (pp. 109-110) nominal number and (pp. 146-148, 162-164) 21 tense-inflected verb stems for Mikarew
Z'graggen (1970) …
Z'graggen (1972) comparative vocabulary of Mikarew
Z'graggen (1975) …
Laycock (1973) …
Foley (2005: 119-121) 60 comparative terms for Mikarew drawn from Capell (1951-1952) and Z'graggen (1971, 1972)
In addition to these, Paul Whitehouse provided a digitalized survey vocabularies of Mikarew via the Summer Institute of Linguistics Ukarumpa; however it is undated and unattributed.
Capell (1951-1952: 138-139) gives 13 or 14 consonants and 9 vowels for Makarub as follows:
| m | n | nʲ | ŋ | |
| p | t | tʲ | k | |
| [f] | s | h | ||
| w | r | ɣ |
| i | u | |
| e | ø | o |
| ɛ | ɜ | ɔ |
| a |
According to Capell, there is no difference between voiceless and voiced stops: “The plosives are devoiced; i.e. intermediate in acoustic effect between voiced and voiceless. At first writing both series were used in the word-lists, but did not prove to have been written at all consistently, and a distinction was not phonemic. The same remarks apply to s for which z also was first used in some words.” However, Z'graggen's representations, while not entirely consistent, correlate non-randomly with Stanhope's (1972) Kire values. Accordingly, we posit that Stanhope's three stop prosodies, aspirated, plain, and voiced, are present, but are somewhat difficult for elicitors to distinguish. Additionally, /z/, reflecting medial /*j/, is plainly distinct from /s/.
Capell suggests that labial fricative [f] may be an allophone of /p/. Since these are distinct in Z'graggen's vocabularies, it's better to state that [f] is an allophone of bilabial fricative /ɸ/.
We propose 18 consonants as follows:
| m | n | ŋ | |
| pʰ | tʰ | kʰ | |
| p | t | k | |
| b | d | g | |
| ɸ | s | ||
| w | r | z | ɣ |
Capell (1951-1952: 139-140) gives pronouns in two case forms for Makarub as follows, with Z'graggen's (1972) forms presented for comparison. The accusative is distinguished only in the first person:
| Capell | Z'graggen | ||
| nominative | accusative | nominative | |
| 1 sg. | kø | na | kɔ |
| 2 sg. | nɔ | — | nɔ |
| 3 sg. | na ≈ nɔ | — | ʌ(nʌ) |
| 1 pl. | ai ≈ ɛ | — | ejʌ |
| 2 pl. | ja | — | jʌ |
| 3 pl. | mɛ | — | mɛ |
| 1 dl. | ka | — | gʌ |
| 2 dl. | kwa | — | gʊʌ |
| 3 dl. | ani | — | (ʌ)ni |
[under contruction]
Z'graggen (1971: CITE) … Capell (1951-1952: 140-141) …
Capell (1951-1952: 141) gives five numbers for Makarub as follows:
| 1 | amɜ'ra |
| 2 | pɔ:ni |
| 3 | pɔ:mɜnimkasam |
| 4 | pɔ:mɜni ko pɔ:mɜni |
| 5 | pɔ:mɜninja pɜmɜn |