Una

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

[under construction]

Una is spoken by 3,500 people (1988) living in 40 villages … southern slopes of central cordillera … Jawawijaya district of Indonesia's Papua province … Ey, Sayn, Mo, Yamiyl, Kiynokk, Ira, Mina and Yay river valleys … Larye and Langda … The term Una /ʊna/ means “what?” (Louwerse 1978: 45-46, 1988: 1, Heeschen 1998: 17.)

Louwerse (1978: 45, 1988: 1) distinguishes four dialects of Una as follows:

Una

Central Ey river valley

Northern Ey river valley

Sayn river valley

Eastern Una

…

de Kock (1912: 169-170) 69 terms for Mt. Goliath

Galis (1955) …

Le Roux (1958: 902-913) …

Voorhoeve (1975: 117) 11 comparative terms for Mt. Goliath after Le Roux

Louwerse and van der Wilden (1975) phonology of Una (unobtained)

Louwerse (1976) vocabulary of Una (unobtained)

Louwerse (1976) grammar of Una (unobtained)

Louwerse (1978) dictionary of Una (unobtained)

Louwerse (1978) phonology of Una of Langda village (Central Ey River valley dialect)

Louwerse (1988) grammar of Una of Langda

Godschalk (1993: 173-180) English translation of de Kock (1912)

Kroneman unpublished survey vocabularies of Bomela and Lukun villages obtained in digitalized form from Paul Whitehouse via the Summer Institute of Linguistics

Louwerse (1988: 7-13) gives 19 consonants and 7 vowels for Una of Langda as follows:

Medial apical voiced stop /d/ is realized as a flap [ɾ] (pp. 12, 99.)

Four diphthongs are recognized as follows:

Louwerse's seven vowel qualities might be reduced to five if close high vowels [i ʉ], which are relatively uncommon and represented orthographically as <iy uw>, are viewed as diphthongs /ɪⁱ ʊᶶ/.

Louwerse (1988: 31-33, 72-75, 106-114) gives pronouns for Una in case forms as follows:

As in Ok to the southeast, possession is signified by the prefixation of the nominative form to the possessed nominal (p. 111.) There is no distinction between alienable and inalienable possession.

The benefactive case is also used to denote referentiality; e.g. “about me” etc.

The verbal object can signify both undergoers and beneficiaries or recipients.

[under construction]

…

Una has a body-part counting system of the type characteristic of the 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 (Louwerse 1988: 77-79):