Ketengban

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Ketengban is spoken by 10,000-12,000 people (1990) living in the Star Mountains, east of the Eipo river valley (Eipomek) and west of the Sibil (Oksibil, Apmisibil) and Sobger rivers in the Jawawijaya district of Indonesia's Papua province. The staple foods of the Ketengban region are sweet potato and taro (Sims 1986: 15-16, Sims, Sims, Basini, Difur and Uropka 1990: x, q.v. Heeschen 1978: 6-7.)

The term Ketengban /kɛtɛŋban/ means “west” (/kɛtɛŋ/ “sun”) in contrast to the very different Ok peoples to the southeast and east (Schiefenhövel 1978: 58.) Tanime, Bime, Kamume and Kinome refer to particular river valleys (/mɛ/ “river”,), Bime for example meaning “yellowish/reddish river,” and by extension the dialects spoken there (Heeschen and Schiefenhövel 1983: 45, 215, Heeschen 1998: 17.)

Ketengban has borrowed some basic vocabulary from the Ok language Ngalum (q.v. Hylkema 1996 ibid.) immediately to the southeast.

Heeschen (1978) comparative notes on Bime, Tanime, Ok Bab and Kamume and (pp. 41-44) 101 comparative terms for Bime

Heeschen and Schiefenhövel's (1983) Eipo dictionary includes some Tanime words

Sims (1986) phonology of Ketengban (unobtained)

Sims (1986) Ketengban tense and aspect (unobtained)

Sims (1986) Ketengban kinship

Sims, Sims, Basini, Difur and Uropka (1990) comprehensive vocabulary of Ketengban

Sims and Sims (1992) phonology of Ketengban (unobtained)

Sims and Sterner (1992) Ketengban kinship (unobtained)

Sims unpublished survey vocabulary of Omban 3 provided in digitalized form by Paul Whitehouse via the Summer Institute of Linguistics

Fowler, Fowler and Rule (n.d.) grammar of Ketengban of Ok Bab (unobtained)

Additionally, unpublished survey vocabularies of Borme 1, Borme II, Kirimu, Kwime, Omban 1, Omban 2, Okbab and Ketengban were provided in digitalized form by Paul Whitehouse via the Summer Institute of Linguistics, however they are unattributed.

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Sims, Sims, Basini, Difur and Uropka (1990: 81) give Ketengban free and possessive pronouns as follows. No plural possessive forms are given:

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Sims, Sims, Basini, Difur and Uropka (1990: 101) give numbers one to twelve, presumably counted up the left side of the body as in other Mek counting systems. No right side numbers are presented:

Because terms for 13 and 14 are not presented, it's not clear whether the temple is included such that the top of the head signifies 14, as in Una (Louwerse 1988: 77-79,) Yale Kosarek (Heeschen 1992: 23) and West Sela (Godschalk 1993: 52-53,) or 13 as in Eipo (Heeschen and Shievenhövel 1983: 18, Heescben 1998: 213-215.)

Ketengban (Sims, Sims, Basini, Difur and Uropka 1990) has a number of basic vocabulary terms which are loans from the Ok language Ngalum (Hylkema 1996) immediately to the southeast: