South Maia

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

South Maia, also known as Saki or somply Maia (Maya,) is spoken by perhaps 1,100 people (2002) living in four villages, Yakiba, Sanavat (Sanarvat,) Dogodogo and Mugumat 2, located inland from New Guinea's north coast as far sotuh as beyond the Guam (Goam) river in the Bogia district of Papua New Guinea's Madang province. The term Saki /pila/ means “speech/word” in contrast to Pila /pila/ which is used in Coastal Maia; however this term is used also in Central Maia. The term Maia /maja/ means “what?” (Z'graggen 1971: 25, 1975: 25-26, q,.v. 1980: 108, 131, Loeweke and May 1982: 5, May and Loeweke 1982: 1-2,, Hardin 2002: 8.)

Z'graggen (1980: 1-159) 325 comparative terms and (62) pronominal paradigms for Saki of Yakiba village

Sullivan (2005: 311-315) 354 terms for Tok Maia

Pick (2020: 156-158) sketch grammar of Maia after Z'graggen (1980) and (pp. 215-228) Saki 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 Saki 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.

Z'graggen (1980: 162) gives pronouns for Saki of Yakiba village in three case forms as follows, the nominative forms being used also to indicate the alienable possessive:

No information about Coastal Maia verbal morphology is currently available to us save for what is evident in Sullivan's (2005: 311-315) Tok Maia vocabulary which includes some examples of inflected verbs.