Afaqina

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Afaqina (/ɐɸɐʔinɐ/) as it's called by its speakers, or Binumarien as it's known in the academic literature, is spoken by 117 people (1973) living in three villages in the far northeast portion of Kainantu subdistrict of Papua New Guinea's Eastern Highlands province, just west of the border with Morobe Province. The term Binumarien refers to a now-abandoned village which was called Pinumaarénai. The Afaqina population was decimated by exposure to malaria after being driven into the Markham valley by warfare. Most Afaqina speakers also speak Akuna (Gadsup,) and many speak Adzera. Its nearest relative is Tairora to the southwest (Oatridge and Oatridge: 1967, 1973: 517, McKaughan 1973: 515.)

Capell (1948-1949: 350-354) pronouns and 90 comparative terms for Binumarian

Oatridge and Oatridge (1965) Binumarien final verb morphology

Oatridge (n.d.) Binumarien nominal morpholoogy

Bee (1965: 1-37) 47 Binumarien reflexes of proto-Kainantu, reprinted in McKaughan ed. (1973: 739-768)

Bee (1966) grammar of Binumarien following Oatridge and Oatridge

Oatridge and Oatridge (1967: 13-21) phonology of Binumarien of Oníkurádarannai village, reprinted in McKaughan ed. (1973: 517-522)

Oatridge, Oatridge and Healey (1973: 557-560) Binumarien nominal morphology

Kerr (1973: 769-799) 32 Binumarien reflexes of proto-Kainantu kin terms

Xiao (1990) comparison of Binumarien with Awa and Hua

Additionally, the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Ukarumpa provides a sketch phonology of Binumarien, but it's undated and unattributed. Given its orthography, its bibliography and the history of the literature, we can probably attribute the material contained therein to Oatridge and Oatridge.

[under construction]

Oatridge and Oatridge (1967: 13-21, 1973: 517-522) give 11 consonants and 5 (6) vowels for Binumarien as follows:

(Oatridge and Oatridge give /ɐ/ as /ə/)

Intervocalic unaspirated stops /p t k/ are realized as geminates [p: t: k:]; /p t/ are voiced [b d] when following homorganic nasals in a cluster.

Non-stop /ɾ/ is specified as a retroflexed alveolar flap.

In addition to these, there is a velar nasal /ŋ/ which is found only in loans from Adzera.

Consonants do not occur word-finally.

… consonant clusters … as follows:

Long low central /ɑ:/ is interpreted as a sequence /ɐɐ/ <aa>. Like /ɑ:/, peripheral mid vowels /e: o:/ are inherently long. Other long syllable nuclei include long high vowels /i: u:/, sequences /iu ui ia ua/ and diphthongs /aⁱ aᵘ/

Each syllable takes one of two tones, high or low.

Bee (1966: 3-4 after Oatridge and Oatridge, cf. Capell 1958-1959: 111-114) gives Binumarien singular pronouns in five case forms as follows. The bases of the third person forms are the demonstratives /mɑ:/ “this” and /mi/ “that”:

Non-singular pronouns are not distinguished by case. The forms of the first and third persons are, like the third person singulars, based upon /mɑ:/ “this” and /mi/ “that,” though note that the first person non-singular is actually cognate with the third person singular near form above. The second person is an independent root reflecting proto-East Kainantu /*iNne:/:

Oatridge and Oatridge (1965: 13, Bee 1966: 8) give Binumarien inalienable possessors and verbal objects as follows, the variants in forms being determined by whether the following roots begins with a consonant or with a vowel:

[under construction]

Oatridge and Oatridge (1965) …