Nalca

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Situation

[under construction]

Nalca (Naltya,) called Hmanggona by its speakers, is spoken by … people living in the Nalca River valley … in the central highlands of Indonesia's Papua province (Voorhoeve 1975: 399, Heeschen 1978: 6-7, q.v. 1992: 466.)

Sources

Bromley (n.d.) unpublished survey vocabulary of Naltya (unobtained)

Bromley (n.d.) Naltya phonology (unobtained)

Voorhoeve (1975: 116) 39 comparative terms for Naltya after Bromley (n.d.)

Voorhoeve (1975: 399) phonemic inventory for Naltya after Bromley (n.d.)

Heeschen (1978) comparative notes on Nalca

Rule, Rule and Cutting (n.d.) grammar of Hmanggona (unobtained)

Svärd (2013) grammar of Nalca

Additionally, a vocabulary of Hmanggona of Oisekla was provided in digitalized form by Paul Whitehouse via the Summer Institute of Linguistics; however it is unattributed.

Phonology

Voorhoeve (1975: 399 after Bromley n.d.) gives 15 consonants and 7 vowels for Naltya as follows:

m	n		ŋ
pʰ	tʰ		kʰ
				ʔ
b	d		g
	s			h
w	l	j

i		u
ɪ		ʊ
ɛ		ɔ
	a

Two tones are distinguished, low-rising and high-falling.

Pronouns

Voorhoeve (1975: 116, 1975: 399 after Bromley n.d.) gives Naltya free pronouns as follows. We reluctantly include the unattributed Hmanggona data because from these we can complete the basic system; presumably /-da/ [da ra] indicates the subject or is emphatic:

	Voorhoeve	[SIL]
1sg.	na	na-ra
2 sg.	an	an-da
3 sg.	[al]	al-da
1 pl.	nun	nun-da
2 pl.	?	?
3 pl.	[sik]	sik-da

Verbal morphology