Tena

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Tena is spoken by nearly 600 people (2004) living in a single vilage, Betaf, on the north coast of the Pantai Timur district of Sarmi regency in Indonesia's Papua province. The village was named Betaf by the Dutch. Tena means “[village of] moving” and is the name speakers use for both their village and their language (Lee and Wambaliau 2004: 2-3, 4.)

Smits and Voorhoeve eds. (1994: 18-266) comparative vocabulary of Kwesten of Betaf village after an unnamed constable

Lee and Wambaliau (2004: 49-62) 237 comparative terms and 21 sentences for Tena of Betaf

There is no published phonology of Tena. Comparison of Lee and Wambaliau's (2004: 49-62) vocabulary with Smits and Voorhoeve's (1994: 18-266) colonial-era vocabularies and to those of Tena's nearest relatives, Fitou and Kwinsu, allows us to posit 12 consonants and 5 vowels for Tena as follows:

In addition to the simple vowels given above, five diphthongs are found as follows:

Any consonant, vowel or diphthong can occur intially or medially, except for plain and round velar voiceless stops /k kʷ/ which do not occur medially except in initial cluster /dk/ [dg].

Only a restricted set of consonants occurs word-finally:

Lee and Wambaliau (2004: 50) give free pronouns for Tena of Betaf as follows:

Nothing is known about Tena verbal morphology besides what little can be discerned from the examples given in Smits and Voorhoeve (1994: 18-266) and Lee and Wambaliau (2004: 49-62.)