Kambaira

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Kambaira is spoken by 135 people (1959-1960) living in the far northeast portion of the Kainantu subdistrict of Papua New Guinea's Eastern Highlands province, southeast of Afaqina (Binumarien) and just west of the border with Morobe province (Wurm and Laycock 1961: 139, Oatridge and Oatridge 1973: 517.) Its nearest relatives are Gadsup and Agarabi to the west.

Kambaira has coparticipated in several conspicuous sound changes with North Tairora to the south. Several basic vocabulary terms have been borrowed from Afaqina.

Vincent (n.d.) 97 terms for Kambaira

Wurm and Laycock (1961: 139, 141, Wurm 1965: 385, 386, 1971: 548-550) place Kambaira immediately with Afaqina (Binumarien) in the East Kainantu (“Tairora(-Binumarien)”) subgroup. Oatridge and Oatridge (1973: 517) assert a close relationship to Binumarien, while specifying that the relationship between Binumarien and Tairora is still closer.

Analysis of Vincent's vocabulary and comparison to other Kainantu phonologies suggests 8 consonants and 5 or 6 vowels for Kambaira as follows:

In addition to the simple vowels given above, at least two diphthongs occur:

There is no direct evidence in Vincent's vocabulary of a distinction between short /ɐ/ and long /a:/, as is found in other West Kainantu languages as well as proto-West Kainantu; reflexes of both are given as <a>.

Bilabial stop /p/ is realized as a fricative [ɸ] intervocalically.

There are four main phonological differences between Kambaira and the relatively well-documented Akuna dialect of Gadsup. The first is that North Kainantu /*t/ became glottal stop /ʔ/ in Kambaira, rather than /k/ as in Gadsup. This was followed by the occlusion of palatal glide /*j/ to velar stop /k/. Both these changes occur in neighboring North Tairora (q.v. McKaughan 1973: 711-714.). Diphthongs /*ɐⁱ *ɐᵘ/ are retained as such in Kambaira, but are merged with the reflexes of simple vowels /*ɐ *o:/ in Akuna. Finally, the ubiquitous nominal article /-mi/ is, when following root-final /ø/ and /R/ respectively, reflected as [-mi -ndi] (below) rather than [-i -ni] as in Akuna.

Only a restricted subset of consonants occurs root-finally. /*N *C *R/ are archiphonemes resulting from West Kainantu's reduction of Kainantu final segments /*NV *CV *ɾV *jV/. Final /*R/ is a conflation of West Kainantu /*ɾ *j/, used here because Kambaira has occluded palatal glide /*j/ to velar stop /k/ in non-final positions:

As in Gadsup, nominals are usually, though not invariably, suffixed with an article /-mi/, reflecting Kainantu demonstrative /*mi/ “that,” the realization of which varies in accordance with the final consonant of the preceding root as follows:

No Kambaira free pronouns are given in Vincent's vocabulary, but several possessive forms are discernible. A form /eni/ is found preposed to kin terms, presumably this is to be equated with Gadsup second person singular subject /è:-nǐ/ (q.v. Franz and McKaughan 1964: 85-87, 1973: 440-441.) Prefixed to body part terms are inalienable possessors /ɐ-/ and /i-/ [i j], presumably indicating the second or third person singular and plural respectively (q.v. Franz 1973: 429.)

Nothing is known about Kambaira verbal morphology.

Kambaira has borrowed a number of basic terms from East Kainantu languages, with Afaqina (Binumarien) or a close relative thereof being the most likely immediate source. Afaqina forms are drawn from Oatridge and Oatridge (1973: 517-522, Bee 1973: 745-759, Kerr 776-795, unattributed n.d.) with native North Kainantu semantic equivalents, several of which are ultimately cognate with the East Kainantu forms, presented for comparison: