East Wambon

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

East Wambon, also known as Yonggom Wambon or simply Wambon, is comprised of two closely-related languages or dialects spoken in at least eight villages located west of the Kao river and south of the Murup in the Mandobo and Waropko districts of the Merauke regency of Indonesian's Papua province (Jang 2003: 25-26, q.v. pp. 14, 38.)

De Vries (1986: 9-10, 1992: 1-2) asserts that East Wambon, called Yonggom (a name which more properly refers to varieties of the Muyu languages to the east, hence “Yonggom Wambon”) by the Digul Wambon to the northwest, is a dialect of the latter, but this is not supported by a comparative examination of the materials and is contradicted by both Voorhoeve's (2000: 362) lexicostatistics and Jang's (2003) lexical similarity figures, which show East Wambon to be somewhat more similar to the Mandobo language to the southwest than it is to Digul Wambon.

The internal classification of East Wambon is as follows:

East Wambon

Agayop

Kokenop

This is in accordance with Jang's (2003: 20, 23-26) lexical similarity findings, although we reject the interpretation of these two language varieties as dialects (“sublanguages”) of Mandobo. Jang's designation “Upper Mandobo” more naturally refers to the Wambon dialect of Mandobo, which is spoken along the upper reaches of the Mandobo river (Drabbe 1959: 4,) while most of Jang's villages are somewhat to the northeast. The term Agayop has been adopted in parallel with Kokenop, the terms for “what?” in Wanaktit (Winiktit) and Bukit respectively (q.v. Drabbe 1959: 180-181, Jang 2003: 47.) The appropriateness of this terminology might be debated as the speakers of Wombon village likewise designate their dialect as Agayop, even though Jang's figures place it somewhat closer to the varieties spoken in Bukit and Anyumka than to that spoken in Winiktit (Jang 2003: 24;) however the inhabitants of Wombon state that their dialect is exactly the same as that of Winiktit but somewhat different from that of Bukit and Anyumka (p. 26)

Stokhof ed. (1982: 129-130) unattributed 44 comparative terms for Uwimerah (observation post) (Kokenop)

Drabbe (1959: 115-…) grammar and (pp. 162-181) 430 comparative terms for Wambon (Agayop) of Waniktit village

Healey (1970) proto Awyu-Dumut

de Vries and de Vries-Wiersma (1992) grammar of Digul-Wambon includes notes on Yonggom-Wambon

de Vries (1986) Wambon relators

Voorhoeve (2000) revision of Healey's proto-Awyu-Dumut

Jang (2003) 239 comparative terms for Kokenop of Bukit village

Wester (2014) Awyu-Dumut comparative morphology including (pp. 195-210) 430 comparative terms for Yonggom Wambon after Drabbe (1959: 162-181)

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Proto-East Wambon had 12 consonants and 5 vowels as follows:

Any consonant can occur initially or medially, except for bilabial voiceless stop /*p/ which has been lenited to non-stop /*w/ or lost in these positions and occurs only root-finally.

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Initial and medial bilabial nasal /*m/ …:

Initial and medial apical nasal /*n/ …:

Bilabial voiceless stop /*p/ …:

Initial and medial apical voiceless stop /*t/ …:

Laminal voiceless /*s/ …:

Initial and medial velar voiceless stop /*k/ …:

Bilabial prenasalized stop /*mb/ …:

Apical prenasalized stop /*nd/ …:

Velar prenasalized stop /*ŋg/ …:

Bilabial non-stop /*w/ …:

Initial and medial apical non-stop /*ɾ/ …:

Initial and medial palatal non-stop /*j/ …:

Final consonants …

Final bilabial nasal /*m/ …:

Final apical nasal /*n/ …:

Final bilabial voiceless stop /*p/ …:

… root-final /*p/ …:

Final apical voiceless stop /*t/ …:

… root-final /*t/ …:

Final velar voiceless stop /*k/ …:

Final apical non-stop /*ɾ/ …:

When final /*ɾ/ …

…

Final palatal non-stop /*j/ …:

Vowels …

High front vowel /*i/ …

High back vowel /*u/ …:

Mid front vowel /*e/ …:

Mid back vowel /*o/ …:

In several examples in which /*o/ is followed by low central vowel /*a/ in the next syllable, it is given as /a/ in Drabbe's Wambon of Wanaktit; however this is not exceptionless (cf. /*kotaj/ “skin” above):

Low central vowel /*a/ …:

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East Wambon has a body-part counting system of the type characteristic of the central west New Guinea region, in which, excepting one, two, and three, the term for the number is generally the same as that for the body part which is touched during tallying. Counting begins from the left pinkie at one, proceeding to the thumb and then up the left side of the body until reaching the top of the head, then proceeding downward on the right side of the body as follows (q.v. Drabbe 1959: 125-126):

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The most significant differences between Agayop and Kokenop are lexical, with Agayop sometimes sharing a word with Mandobo to the southwest where Kokenop shares one with Digul Wambon to the northwest:

… loans from Lowland Ok:

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