Rumu-Omati River

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

The Rumu-Omati River family, also known as Turama-Kikorian, is comprised of four or five languages spoken along the Kikori, Omati and Turama Rivers in the western portion of Papua New Guinea's Gulf Province (Franklin 1973: 263-267.) Barikewa, Kaser and Mouwase are quite similar to one another, approaching mutual intelligibility (Petterson 2011: 4,) while Rumu is sharply distinct.

The internal classification of Rumu-Omati River is as follows:

Rumu-Omati River

Rumu

Omati River

Barikewa

Kaser-Mouwase

Kaser

Mouwase

Franklin (1973: 266-267) gives lexicostatistical figures for Turama-Kikori languages as follows:

Bevan (1890) Tumu (Rumu) (unobtained)

Ray (1907: 391-412) comparative vocabulary of Tumu after Bevan (1890)

Chinnery (1917-1918: 96) 130 comparative terms for Kibiri and Kai-iri (Rumu) of Dopima, Kibiri and Mati villages

Johnston (1919-1920: 119) 130 comparative terms for Karima (Mouwase) of Kibeni village

Johnston (1921-1922: 166) 126 comparative terms for Barika (Barikewa) of Asanu village

Saunders (1923-1924: 57) 118 comparative terms for Dugeme (Dukemi Kaser) of Sororo village

Franklin ed. (1973: 573-575) 100 comparative terms for Kairi, for Ikobi-Kairi (Kikori River) and Mena varieties of Kaser, and for Omati (Mouwase)

Petterson (1989) dictionary of Rumu (unobtained)

Newman and Petterson (1990) Rumu tones

Petterson (1991) 190 comparative terms for Barikiwa (Barikewa) of Iba village

Petterson (1992) sketch phonology of Rumu

Petterson (1999) dictionary of Rumu

Petterson (2011) phonology of Turama River Kaser of Koumaio village

Petterson (2011) dictionary of Kaser (531 terms)

Petterson (2014) verbal inflections for Kaser and Rumu

Petterson (2014) dictionary of Mouwase (1,198 terms)

Carr (2006) 190 comparative terms for Barikewa of Kaiam village, Kaser of Koumaiou and Mowase of Gibidai

Murepe (n.d.) survey vocabulary of Rumu provided in spreadsheet form by Paul Whitehouse via the Summer Institute of Linguistics Ukarumpa.

In addition to these, a survey vocabulary of Kaser was provided in comparative spreadsheet form by Paul Whitehouse via the Summer Institute of Linguistics Ukarumpa; however it is undated and unattributed. It is not the same as Franklin's or Carr's data.

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Proto-Rumu-Omati River had at least 11 consonants and 7 vowels:

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

Consonants correspond as follows:

Vowels correspond as follows:

…

These correspondences are exemplified as follows, with Rumu attestations drawn from Petterson (1989.)

Nasalization is contrastive, but is difficult to reconstruct because it is preserved only sporadically in Kaser. For example, /*isĩ/ “eye” is not directly attested as such, but nasalization is indicated by outcomparison to Lake Kutubu /*hĩ/.

Tone is contrastive, but has not been indicated in the protoforms below.

Bilabial nasal /*m/ …:

Final /*m/ is dropped in Rumu:

Apical nasal /*n/ …:

Final /*n/ is dropped in Rumu:

Apical voiceless stop /*t/ …:

…:

…:

Velar voiceless stop /*k/ …:

Medial /*k/, if one existed in proto-Rumu-Omati River, is not directly discernible, as it has been dropped in all descendants. Here the former presence of /*k/ is established by outcomparison:

Bilabial voiced stop /*b/ is devoiced to /p/ in Rumu:

Rumu appends high back vowel /o/ to root-final /*b/:

Apical voiced stop /*d/ …:

One mismatch indicates a loan from pre-Inland Gulf:

…:

Medial /*d/ has merged with medial /*t/ in Omati River:

Velar voiced stop /*g/ …:

Bilabial fricative /*ɸ/ …:

Laminal fricative /*s/ …:

Final /*s/ is dropped in Rumu:

Bilabial non-stop /*w/ …:

Palatal non-stop /*j/ …:

…:

Vowels …

…:

…:

…:

…:

…:

…:

…:

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Absolutive forms of the personal pronouns are as follows, with Rumu forms drawn from Pettersen (1989 ibid.):