Central Asmat

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Central Asmat is spoken across a large a portion of New Guinea's southwest coastal and interior lowlands, from the Jac River in the northwest to the Casuarina Coast to the south (q.v. Voorhoeve 1980: viii.) Central Asmat, especially the Kawenak dialect, is the best-documented Asmat language, with Drabbe's (1959)  dictionary and grammar of Kawenak, (1963) survey of three dialects, Voorrhoeve's (1965) Kawenak grammar and dictionary and (1980) extensive survey involving 32 Central Asmat villages.

Building upon Drabbe (1963: CITE,) Voorhoeve (1980: 6-14, 24-28) classifies Central Asmat dialects and subdialects as follows:

Central Asmat

Keenok

Sokoni

Keenakap

Kawenak

Simai

Kainak

Mismam

Mecemup

Divergence between dialects is illustrated by lexicostatistical percentages as follows (1980: 8-9, 12):

Feuilletau de Bruijn (1915) Kaja Kaja variety of Asmat (unobtained)

Drabbe (1950) unpublished comparative vocabulary of Simai Kawenak (unobtained)

Drabbe (1953: 96-104) 378 comparative terms for Simai Kawenak

Drabbe (1954: 232-255) 100 comparative terms fo Simai Kawenak

Drabbe (1959) grammar of Simai Kawenak (unobtained)

Drabbe (1959) dictionary of Simai Kawenak (unobtained)

Drabbe (1963) study of Asmat dialects and (pp. 212-233) 377 comparative terms for Kawenak, Keenok and Keenakap varieties

Voorhoeve (1965) dictionary and grammar of Flamingo Bay variety of Kawenak

Voorhoeve (1980) survey of Asmat dialects and (pp. 61-121) 455 reconstructed terms for Proto-Asmat with exemplars from 33 Central Asmat villages

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Drabbe (1963: 36-66) provides an extensive description of verbal desinence morphology for Keenok, Keenakap and Kawenak.