Massep language

Massep (Masep, Potafa, Wotaf) is a poorly documented Papuan language spoken by fewer than 50 people in the single village of Masep in West Pantai District, Sarmi Regency, Papua. Despite the small number of speakers, however, language use is vigorous. It is surrounded by the Kwerba languages Airoran and Samarokena.^[2]

Massep
Wotaf
Native to	Indonesia
Region	Papua: Sarmi Regency, West Pantai District, north coast (Masep village); also west of Sarmi near Apauwer River
Ethnicity	85 (2000)[1]
Native speakers	25 (2000)[1]
Language family	Northwest Papuan? Foja Range Kwerbic Massep
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mvs
Glottolog	mass1263
ELP	Masep
Massep Show map of Western New Guinea Massep Show map of Indonesia
Coordinates: 1.75°S 138.29°E / -1.75; 138.29

Classification

Clouse, Donohue, and Ma (2002) did not notice connections to any other language family.^[3] Ethnologue, Glottolog, and Foley (2018)^[2] list it as a language isolate.^[1][4] Usher classifies it as Greater Kwerbic.^[5] The pronouns are not dissimilar from those of Trans–New Guinea languages, but Massep is geographically distant from that family.

Phonology

Consonants:^[2]

	t	c	k
			kʷ
			ᵑɡ
ɸ	s	ʃ
β			ɣ
m	n	ɲ
	r
w		j

Some probable consonant leniting sound changes from pre-Massep proposed by Foley (2018):

• *p > ɸ
• *b > β
• *d > r
• *k > ɣ (perhaps partially)

Vowels:^[2]

i	u
e	o
a

Pronouns

Pronouns are:^[2]

	sg	pl
1	ka	nyi
2	gu	je
3	evi	ive

Morphology

Massep case suffixes as quoted by Foley (2018) from Clouse (2002):^[2][3]

suffix	case
-o ~ -u ~ -a	accusative
-ɣoke	dative
-aveno	instrumental
-meno	associative
-(a)vri	locative
-ni	allative
-a	temporal

Sentences

Massep sentences as quoted by Foley (2018) from Clouse (2002):^[2]

(1)

ka

1SG

icin-o

stone-ACC

fartasi

throw

unu-ɣoke

dog-DAT

ka icin-o fartasi unu-ɣoke

1SG stone-ACC throw dog-DAT

‘I threw a stone at the dog.’

(2)

je

2PL

saremna

sit

yaf-avri

house-LOC

je saremna yaf-avri

2PL sit house-LOC

‘You (pl.) sat in the house.’

(3)

gu

2SG

ko-war-emon

1SG.OBJ-see-SG.TNS

gu ko-war-emon

2SG 1SG.OBJ-see-SG.TNS

‘You see me.’

Word order is SOV.

References

1. Massep at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. Foley, William A. (2018). "The languages of Northwest New Guinea". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 433–568. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
3. Clouse, Duane; Donohue, Mark; Ma, Felix (2002). "Survey Report of the North Coast of Irian Jaya" (PDF). SIL. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2018-07-23.
4. Hammarström, Harald; Forke, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2020). "Massep". Glottolog 4.3.
5. Usher, Timothy. West Foja Range. New Guinea World.

External links

• Timothy Usher & Mark Donohue, Masep, New Guinea World