Kosare

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Kosare is spoken by over 200 people (2006) living in two villages, Naira and Muara Nawa, and at least five hamlets, Yakopru, Meteor, Benawa, Kotogru and Kali Keri, situated to either side of the Taritatu (Idenburg) River and west of the Sobger river, upriver from Kapauri, south of Kaure and north of the Mek and Dani language areas, as well as in the Kapauri village of Pagai somewhat to the northwest, in the Airu district of Jayapura regency in Indonesia's Papua province. The Kosare were originally nomadic, living in hamlets scattered throughout the forest before the construction of Pagai by missionaries in a collaboration with a Kapuri elder, who gathered both Kosare and Kapauri in the new village. During the construction of the Trans Irian highway in 1997, Kosare then living in Pagai built two villages of their own, Naira and Muara Nawa, along the road following the Taritatu in their traditional territory. The Kosare obtain their subsistence through hunting pigs, fishing, sago processing and gardening (Wambaliau 2006: 2-4, Menanti and Rumaropen 2009: 3, 4.)

Heeschen's (1978: 5, 6) Kosare is shown to have been elicited in a location significantly south of the Taritatu. According to Schiefenhövel (1978: 49) this village is called Kosare, but the term Kosare /kosaɽɛ/ refers to the the language as a whole and means “what?” (q.v. Wambaliau 2006: 28, Heeschen: 1978: 43.) Their nearest linguistic relatives, the Kaure people, likewise call the language Kosale /kɔsaɭɛ/ (Dommel, Dommel, Auri and Pokoko 1991: 84.) Schiefenhövel states that the Kosare provide goods in exchange for Sirkai (Ketengban) wives.

Heeschen (1978: 41-44) 97 comparative terms for Kosare

Wambaliau (2006: 24-30) 260 comparative terms for Kosare of Muara Nawa and Naira villages

There is no published phonology of Kosare. Based upon historical phonological comparison of Heeschen's (1978: 41-44) and Wambaliau's (2006: 24-30) survey vocabularies with Kosare's better documented nearest relative, Kaure, we propose an inventory of 12 consonants and 7 vowels as follows:

The distinction between high mid and low mid vowels is not visible in Wambaliau's attestations, where high mid vowels appear to have merged with their high counterparts; however they are distinguished in Heeschen's forms where they correspond regularly to Kaure values, and thus must be original. It's unclear whether this represents a difference in dialects or the merger occured within the three decades separating the two atttestations.

Examples illustrating the high mid to high vowel merger include the following:

Low mid vowels remain unchanged:

Wambaliau (2006: 24) gives free pronouns for Kosare as follows, with Heeschen's (1978: 41-44) forms presented for comparison:

Nothing is known about Kosare verbal morphology beyond what can be discerned in the comparative vocabularies of Heeschen (1978: 41-44) and Wambaliau (2006: 24-30.) A transitive prefix /kɛ-/ analogous to Kaure /ka-/ may be observed in both vocabularies.