Ketengban

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Situation

Ketengban is spoken by 10,000-12,000 people (1990) living in the Star Mountains, east of the Eipo river valley (Eipomek) and west of the Sibil (Oksibil, Apmisibil) and Sobger rivers in the Jawawijaya district of Indonesia's Papua province. The staple foods of the Ketengban region are sweet potato and taro (Sims 1986: 15-16, Sims, Sims, Basini, Difur and Uropka 1990: x, q.v. Heeschen 1978: 6-7.)

The term Ketengban /kɛtɛŋban/ means “west” (/kɛtɛŋ/ “sun”) in contrast to the very different Ok peoples to the southeast and east (Schiefenhövel 1978: 58.) Tanime, Bime, Kamume and Kinome refer to particular river valleys (/mɛ/ “river”,), Bime for example meaning “yellowish/reddish river,” and by extension the dialects spoken there (Heeschen and Schiefenhövel 1983: 45, 215, Heeschen 1998: 17.)

Ketengban has borrowed some basic vocabulary from the Ok language Ngalum (q.v. Hylkema 1996 ibid.) immediately to the southeast.

Sources

Heeschen (1978) comparative notes on Bime, Tanime, Ok Bab and Kamume and (pp. 41-44) 101 comparative terms for Bime

Heeschen and Schiefenhövel's (1983) Eipo dictionary includes some Tanime words

Sims (1986) phonology of Ketengban (unobtained)

Sims (1986) Ketengban tense and aspect (unobtained)

Sims (1986) Ketengban kinship

Sims, Sims, Basini, Difur and Uropka (1990) comprehensive vocabulary of Ketengban

Sims and Sims (1992) phonology of Ketengban (unobtained)

Sims and Sterner (1992) Ketengban kinship (unobtained)

Sims unpublished survey vocabulary of Omban 3 provided in digitalized form by Paul Whitehouse via the Summer Institute of Linguistics

Fowler, Fowler and Rule (n.d.) grammar of Ketengban of Ok Bab (unobtained)

Additionally, unpublished survey vocabularies of Borme 1, Borme II, Kirimu, Kwime, Omban 1, Omban 2, Okbab and Ketengban were provided in digitalized form by Paul Whitehouse via the Summer Institute of Linguistics, however they are unattributed.

Phonology

[under construction]


Pronouns

Sims, Sims, Basini, Difur and Uropka (1990: 81) give Ketengban free and possessive pronouns as follows. No plural possessive forms are given:

freepossessive
1 sg.nɛŋɛ
2 sg.kan kanʲɛ
3 sg.ɛɾ ɛɾnʲɛ
1 pl.nun ?
2 pl.sun ?
3 pl.sun ?

Verbal morphology

[under construction]


Counting system

Sims, Sims, Basini, Difur and Uropka (1990: 101) give numbers one to twelve, presumably counted up the left side of the body as in other Mek counting systems. No right side numbers are presented:

[pinkie] 1 tɛnɸu
[ring finger] 2 bitinɛ ~ butini
[middle finger]3 wɛnɛɾi
index finger 4 dum-baɾi
thumb 5 ɸamu-baɾi
wrist 6 ŋaŋtan
forearm 7 jɔ nitam
elbow 8 ban-baɾi
upper arm 9 tɔᵘpnɛ
shoulder 10mɔɾɔkʲɔ/taᵘ-baɾi
side of neck 11kum
ear 12amɔl di utʲa

Because terms for 13 and 14 are not presented, it's not clear whether the temple is included such that the top of the head signifies 14, as in Una (Louwerse 1988: 77-79,) Yale Kosarek (Heeschen 1992: 23) and West Sela (Godschalk 1993: 52-53,) or 13 as in Eipo (Heeschen and Shievenhövel 1983: 18, Heescben 1998: 213-215.)

Loans from Ngalum

Ketengban (Sims, Sims, Basini, Difur and Uropka 1990) has a number of basic vocabulary terms which are loans from the Ok language Ngalum (Hylkema 1996) immediately to the southeast:

OkNgalum Ketengban
heart *…dip-lopdipɾu
fat/grease*…? kɔp
blood *…japi japʲ-ɛ ~ japi