Baruga

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Baruga is spoken by 1,500 people (1997) living in the valleys of the Bareji and Lower Musa rivers in Papua New Guinea's Oro (Northern) province. There are three dialects of Baruga, Tafota, Bareji and Mado. The staple crops of the Baruga area are taro and sago (Farr, Furoke and Farr 1997: 1-2.)

Baruga is divisible into three dialects, with populations (1997,) locations and villages as follows (Farr, Furoke and Farr 1997: 1):

Baruga

Tafota (600) (2005: 800)

Musa River: Erika, Guruguru, Dove, Sananade

Foru River: Foru 1, Foru 2

Tafota Point: Kare Sovu

Bareji (500)

Yupuru and Bareji rivers: Songada, Karaisa, Sariri

Mado (400)

Embessa

Musa Falls: three unnamed villages

Strong (1910-1911: 211-213) 91 comparative terms for Baruga

Ray (1938: CITE) comparative vocabularies of Baruga and Totore

Wilson (1969: 80-81) 34 comparative terms for Baruga and 26 comparative terms for Bareji

Farr, Furoke and Farr (1997) grammar of Tafota dialect

Farr and Farr (2005) phonology of Tafota dialect

Capell (n.d.) survey vocabulary of Baruga obtained in rekeyed form from Paul Whitehouse via the Summar Institute of Linguistics, Ukarumpa

Farr and Farr (2005 1, ibid.) give 15 consonants and 5 vowels for Tafota Baruga as follows:

Vowels are further distinguished by the presence vs. absence of nasalization:

Only nasalized vowels occur following nasals /m n/. Prenasalized segments [mb nd ndʒ ŋg] reflect voiced stops following a nasalized vowel. Similarly, palatal non-stop /j/ is realized with preceding [ɲ] when following a nasalized vowel. Prenasalized velar non-stop /ɣ̃/ is considered phonemic because, unlike other prenasalized segments, it occurs initially. Initial prenasalized /mb nd ndʒ ŋg/ are found however in the Mado dialect (p. 4, 12.)

Bilabial non-stop /β/ is realized as labiodental [v] when followed by front vowels [i e] and as [w] when followed by back vowels [u o]. Similarly, bilabial voiceless fricative /ɸ/ (Oro /*pʰ/) is realized as [f] and [ɸʷ] when followed by [i e] or [u o] respectively (p. 12.)

Vowel sequences occur freely and are not distinguished from diphthongs. Long vowels [i: e: a: o: u:] are treated as geminates (pp. 4-8.)

Neither final consonants nor consonant clusters occur.

Stress is phonemic. It usually falls on the first syllable of words with two syllables and upon the second of those with three or more, but there are many exceptions (pp. 8-10.)

Farr, Furoke and Farr (1997: 26-27) give Tafota Baruga pronouns in six case forms as follows, with <_> symbolizing the citation form:

(For ease of reading, prenasalized segments are shown here as <mb nd ŋg>)

There are only four pronominal roots /na ni nu ne/, the first three of which are undifferentiated by number and vary in realization from [na ni nu] to [ã ĩ ũ]. Two forms are given for the third person plural, one based upon /ne/ and taking suffix /-mo/ as found on the singular forms, the other based upon third person singular /nu/ and taking plural non-inclusive /-mane/. The root /*ne/, found also in Korafe signifying the second and well as the third person plural, has no known origin beyond Southeast Oro, but might be assumed to be archaic upon the theory that this retention represents the tail end of a gradual process in which erstwhile plurals have been replaced by number-inflected forms of the singulars.

The first person plural inclusive is the first person singular /na-mo/ sufficed with /-de/ “with” (Farr and Farr 2005: 12.)

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Farr, Furoke and Farr (1997: 8-25) give a large number of final tense and mood indicators for Baruga; unfortunately these are only exemplified in the first person singular.