Coastal Maia

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Coastal Maia, also known as Pila, is spoken by approximately 670 people (1975) living in six villages, Moap, Bonaputa, Wangor (Wangol, Wango,) Bimat, Suaru and Yambayamba (Yambiyambi, Yambainbai,) located along New Guinea's north coast east of Bogia Bay and west of Banara in the Bogia district of Papua New Guinea's Madang province. The term Pila /pila/ means “speech/word” in contrast to Saki /saki/ which is used in Maia's inland dialects. The term Maia /maja/ means “what?” (Z'graggen 1971: 25, 1975: 25, q,.v. 1980: 108, 131, Loeweke and May 1982: 5, May and Loeweke 1982: 1-2, q.v. Tranel 1952: 452, Z'graggen 1975: 3.)

Z'graggen (1980: 1-159) 324 comparative terms and (161 pronominal paradigms for Pila of Suaru village

Pick (2020: 156-158) sketch grammar of Maia after Z'graggen (1980) and (pp. 215-228) Pila reflexes of proto-North Adelbert and (429-229) proto-Kaukombar drawn from Z'graggen (1980: 1-159)

Pick (2020: 156-157,) based upon Z'graggen's (1980) data, gives 13 consonants and 5 vowels for Pila as follows:

There is also a velar nasal [ŋ] which often appears where apical /n/ might otherwise be expected; it is unclear if this distinction is phonemic.

Prenasalized voiced stops /mb nd ŋg/ can be realized as plain voiced [m d g], epsecially word-initially.

Z'graggen (1980: 161) gives pronouns for Pila of Suaru village in four case forms as follows:

No information about Coastal Maia verbal morphology is currently available to us