Edwas
Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute
Situation
Edwas is spoken by approximately 1,700 people (2004) living in two villages, Beneraf and Nengke, along the north coast of the Pantai Timur district of Sarmi regency in Indonesia's Papua province. The name Beneraf was given by the Dutch. Edwas /e-dwas/, meaning “big village,” is the name of their former village further inland and is used by speakers to refer to their language (Lee and Wambaliau 2004: 2-3, 4.)
Sources
Lee and Wambaliau (2004: 49-56) 239 comparative terms for Edwas of Nengke and Beneraf villages and (pp. 57-62) 21 sentences for Nengke
Phonology
[under construction]
…
Pronouns
Lee and Wambaliau (2004: 50) give free pronouns for Edwas of Nengke and Beneraf as follows:
| Nengke | Beneraf | |
| 1 sg. | ai | ai |
| 2 sg. | im | im |
| 3 sg. | dei | dei |
| 1 pl. | imai | ne-'teu |
| 2 pl. | imnaske/'in-teu | imnaske/'in-teu |
| 3 pl. | imnasaisiske/ 'de-teu | imnasaisiske/ 'de-teu |
Verbal morphology
Nothing is known about Edwas verbal morphology besides what little can be discerned from the examples given in Lee and Wambaliau (2004: 49-62.)