Mabulap

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Mabulap, also known as Amaimon, is spoken by 900 people (2001) living in at least four villages, Tebesarik (Tebinsarik,) Wagusarik, Koromasarik (Karamasarik) and Amaimon, south of the Gogol river and north of the Sogeram river in the Madang district of Papua New Guinea's Madang province. In addition to these four villages, Z'graggen gives a fifth, Baisarik (Z'graggen 1971: 54-55, 1975: 29, q.v. p. 3., Lillie 2001: 1.) Its nearest relartives are the Numugen River languages spoken immediately to the north. To the west and south are spoken the Sogeram River languages Sirvea, Apalɨ and Aisi; tho the east are spoken the Mabuso languages Kare, Utu, Munit, Kein (Bemal) and Girawa (q.v. Z'graggen 1975: 3.)

Z'graggen (1980: 1-159) 313 comparative terms and (p. 165) pronominal paradigms for Amaimon

Lillie (2001) sketch phonology of Amaimon (Mabulap) of Tebesarik village

[under construction]

Z'graggen (1971: 54-55, 1975: 29) considers Amaimon to be a family-level isolate in the Pihom Stock subgroup of the Northern Adelbert Superstock.

…Ross …

…Pick (2020: …) …

We find Mabulap (Amaimon) most closely related to the Numugen River subgroup within Adelbert Range.

Lillie (2001) gives 16 or 17 consonants and 5 vowels for Amaimon of Tebesarik village as follows:

In addition to the simple vowels given above, four diphthongs are found as follows:

Besides these diphthongs, vowel sequences do not occur.

Neither stress nor tone is phonemic.

Z'graggen (1980: 165) gives free pronouns for Amaimon in three case forms as follows:

No information about Amaimon verbal morphology is currently available to us.

[under construction]

Mabulap is nearly half-surrounded by languages of the Sogeram River subgroup of West Madang, Sirva (Sileibi) to the northwest, Apalɨ (Emerum) to the west and Aisi (Musak) to the south; accrordingly are found a number of loans from these languages into Mabulap:

Some of these loans are shared with Numugen River, suggesting that they date to the time of Proto-Mabulap-Numugen River, a supposition supported by the fact that they are reconstructable also for proto-Sogeram River and that Numugen River undergoes the regular loss of initial voiceless laminal /*s/:

(Note: Daniels gives Sogeram /*nd *ŋg/ as <*nt *ŋk>.)

One word is found across a number of languages in the upper Ramu river region, freely cutting across subgroup boundaries. Here Amaimon's retention of palatal non-stop /*j/ is irregular an d indicates a latter-day loan; the source of final lateral non-stop /l/ is unknown:

To the east are spoken the Mabuso languages …

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Loans from Oceanic languages are invariably shared with Numugen River and presumably date to at least proto-Mabulap-Numugen River: