Abun language

The speakers number about 3,000 spread across 18 villages and several isolated hamlets. The Abun area occupies a stretch of the northern coast of the Bird's Head Peninsula. The neighbouring languages are Moi to the southwest along the coast, Moraid and Karon Dori to the south (the latter is a dialect of Maybrat), and Mpur to the east.{{sfn|Berry|Berry|1999|p=1}}

The Abun speakers refer to their language as either Abun or Anden. Several other names are in use by neighbouring groups: the Moi call it Madik, the Mpur refer to it as Yimbun or Yembun, while among the {{link-interwiki|Biak people|id|Suku Biak}} it is known as Karon Pantai, a term with derogatory connotations.{{sfn|Berry|Berry|1999|p=2}}

Abun has four distinct dialects: Abun Tat, Abun Ye, and the two dialects of Abun Ji. The two Abun Ji dialects are differentiated by their use of /r/ or /l/. Abun exists on a dialect continuum from Abun Tat to Abun Ji /l/: speakers of Abun Tat are less able to understand Abun Ji than Abun Ye.{{sfn|Berry|Berry|1999}}

Abun has 5 vowels: /i, e, ɑ, o, u/.{{sfn|Berry|Berry|1999}}

Abun has three lexical tones, which are high, mid, and low. A minimal set showing all three tones:

{{interlinear|number=(1)

|ʃúr ʃè

|water flow

|'the water flows'}}

{{interlinear|number=(2)

|ʃúr ʃé

|water flood

|'a big flood'}}

{{interlinear|number=(3)

|ʃúr ʃe

|water big

|'a big river'}}

High/rising tones can also be used to mark plurals (Berry & Berry 1999:21).

• ndam 'bird', ndám 'birds'
• nu 'house', nú 'houses'
• gwa 'taro tuber', gwá 'taro tubers'

Abun has bipartite negation like French, using the pre-predicate negator yo and post-predicate negator nde. Both are obligatory.{{rp|608–609}} Example:

{{interlinear|indent=3

|Án yo ma mo nu nde.

|3PL NEG come to house NEG

|'They didn't come to the house.'}}

Like the other language isolates of the northern Bird's Head Peninsula, Abun is a heavily isolating language, with many one-to-one word-morpheme correspondences, as shown in the example sentence below.

{{interlinear|indent=3

|Men ben suk mo nggwe yo, men ben suk sino.

|1PL do thing LOC garden then 1PL do thing together

|'If we do things at the garden, then we do them together.'}}

The following basic vocabulary words are from Miedema & Welling (1985)Miedema, J. and Welling, F.I. "Fieldnotes on languages and dialects in the Kebar district, Bird's Head, Irian Jaya". In Adams, K., Lauck, L., Miedema, J., Welling, F., Stokhof, W., Flassy, D., Oguri, H., Collier, K., Gregerson, K., Phinnemore, T., Scorza, D., Davies, J., Comrie, B. and Abbott, S. editors, Papers in New Guinea Linguistics No. 22. A-63:29-52. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1985. {{doi|10.15144/PL-A63.29}} and Voorhoeve (1975),Voorhoeve, C.L. Languages of Irian Jaya: Checklist. Preliminary classification, language maps, wordlists. B-31, iv + 133 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1975. {{doi|10.15144/PL-B31}} as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:{{Cite web |url=http://transnewguinea.org/language/ |title=TransNewGuinea.org - database of the languages of New Guinea |last=Greenhill |first=Simon |date=2016| access-date=2020-11-05}}

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{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite book| last1 = Berry| first1 = Christine| last2 = Berry| first2 = Keith| date = 1999| title = A description of Abun: a west Papuan language of Irian Jaya | series=Pacific Linguistics Series B, Volume 115 | publisher = Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University| isbn = 0-85883-482-0| url =http://sealang.net/archives/pl/pdf/PL-B115.pdf}}

• [http://globalrecordings.net/langcode/kgr A sample of Abun from Global Recordings Network]
• [http://transnewguinea.org/iso/kgr Abun languages on TransNewGuinea.org]

{{Papuan languages}}

{{West Papuan languages}}

{{Languages of Indonesia}}

Category:West and Central Bird's Head languages

Category:Languages of Western New Guinea

Category:Tonal languages