Wena: Difference between revisions

'''Wena''' (also known as '''Hibu''', '''Hibuese''', '''Mannenese''' or '''Nenge''') is a language isolate spoken by around 60,000 people on the Hibu Islands in the Hibu Province of Papua New Guinea. It is called by its speakers either ''nenge wena'' or ''nenge wana'', both essentially meaning 'our language', the former using the exclusive word 'we, not you' and the latter using the inclusive word 'we, including you'. The closest land to the Hibu Islands is Simberi Island about 150 kilometres to the southwest. Nuguria Atoll is a similar distance away to the southeast. About half of the Wena people are monolingual, the other half also having knowledge of Tok Pisin and a much smaller percentage know English. Dialectal differences are little-documented and appear to be small, most likely owing to the high degree of travel around the island.

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* <small>¹</small> The plain plosives /b d g/, the prenasalised plosives /^{<small>m</small>}b ^{<small>n</small>}d ^{<small>ŋ</small>}g/ and the non-glottal fricatives /v z/ are pronounced voicelessly in a register called ''nenge la'', which is spoken by most speakers: [p t k], [^{<small>m</small>}p ^{<small>n</small>}t ^{<small>ŋ</small>}k], [f s]. The voiced pronunciation is only used in a register called ''nenge hu'', which is only spoken by men who have passed initiation. The early missionaries who first described and wrote down the language were only allowed contact with initiated men, which is why the voiced allophones, although used by less than half of the speakers, are traditionally used to describe these phonemes.

* <small>²</small> In ''nenge hu'', /d/ is frequently pronounced as a tap or flap [ɾ] when before an unstressed vowel.

* <small>³</small> ''Post pausa'', the prenasalised plosives /^{<small>m</small>}b ^{<small>n</small>}d ^{<small>ŋ</small>}g/ are preceded by a syllabic nasal [m̩.p  n̩.t  ŋ̩.k] or [m̩.b  n̩.d  ŋ̩.g]. When immediately following a vowel, the nasalised onset can phonetically be regarded as belonging to the previous syllable Some speakers of ''nenge hu'', pronounce the prenasalised plosives in all positions as geminate nasals [mː nː ŋː]. This same tendency in ''nenge la'' retains the lack of voicing during the release into the vowel, causing these to sound like [mh nh ŋh].

* <small>⁴</small> /j/ has a palatalising effect on preceding consonants, especially alveolar consonants and /h/. The sequence /hj/ is pronounced [ç]. The sequences /dj ^{<small>n</small>}dj nj zj lj/ generally end up pronounced towards [t͡ɕ~d͡ʒ ^{<small>n</small>}t͡ɕ~d͡ʒ ɲ ɕ~ʒ ʎ]. This effect on obstruents tends to be stronger in ''nenge hu'', resulting in postalveolar [d͡ʒ ^{<small>n</small>}d͡ʒ ʒ] whereas ''nenge la'' tends to use palatalised [t͡ɕ ^{<small>n</small>}t͡ɕ ɕ] or [t͡sʲ ^{<small>n</small>}t͡sʲ sʲ]. Three additional phonemes */d͡ʒ ^{<small>n</small>}d͡ʒ ʒ/ are sometimes suggested in order to explain the presence of a contrast between plain and palatalised pronunciations of /d ^{<small>n</small>}d z/ before /i/, while the sequence /ji/ is elswhere prohobited. Analyses that do not posit these extra phonemes simply allow /ji/ to appear in this location.

The consonants are written using their phonemic representations in IPA with the exception of the prenasalised plosives /^{<small>m</small>}b ^{<small>n</small>}d ^{<small>ŋ</small>}g/, written '''mb''', '''nd''' and '''ngg''' respectively, /ŋ/, written '''ng''' and /j/ written '''y'''. The letter '''r''' is used in some texts to indicate where the tapped or flapped allophone of /d/ appears. This is not consistent, although the Wena bible uses this and many names are spelled this way.  

The following table shows the basic pronunciation of each written letter or letter combination.

{| class="bluetable lightbluebg sortable"

Wena's pronouns are syntactically no different from any other nouns.   

 

The pronominal system of Wena is, like most other parts of the language, composed of transparent compounds. It contains three types of clusivity: exclusive, inclusive of third person, and inclusive of second person. The third person pronoun is generally glossed as DEF.E (definite entity) as it is used as a definite article in a lot of situations.

| na || wena || wena || wana  

| wa || wewa || wade || -  

| de || dwe / de (we) || - || -  

The distinction between ''wena'' "we" and ''wana'' "we" is that the latter includes any listeners whereas the former does not. In the second person, ''wewa'' is used to refer to a group with all members present and being addressed. ''Wede'' refers to a group whose members are not all present or being spoken to.

All the pronouns have distinct genitive forms equivalent to being preceded with ''ya''. For example, ''ya na'' is equivalent to ''nga'', with the former being more emphatic and the latter being more common. The forms are shown in the following table.

| nga || vyena || vyena || wona

| wo || vyewa || wode || -  

| zyi || zyi (we) || - || -

Note that ''zyi we'' is often pronounced as one syllable, losing the /i/. This is sometimes indicated in writing as ''zy'we''.

======Modified and replaced pronouns======

Any of the pronouns may be followed by any of the kinds of modifiers that any other noun can. Appositional modifiers are quite frequent. ''Wa da'' is used as an honorific when speaking to an important man. When speaking to a chief, however, one should avoid the above listed pronouns entirely and refer to him simply with the word ''mwada'' 'chief'. People addressing the chief humble themselves by referring to themselves as ''na di''.

In the third person, when talking about a number of people or things, modifiers are frequently used to disambiguate between referents that would otherwise all be referred to as ''de''. Some commonly used phrases are ''de la'' 'the woman', ''de hu'' 'the man', ''de ngo'' 'the person', ''de nu'' 'the thing'. These are also very commonly used without ''de'', as definiteness tends not to be marked explicitly except through the use of the genitive form ''zyi''.

=====Reciprocal and reflexive pronouns=====

The reciprocal pronoun is ''dede'' 'each other', 'one another'. It has the genitive form ''zyide''.

:{| class="whitetable"

| colspan="4" | '''''Wena i le zyide.'''''

| colspan="4" | ''We love each other.''

:{| class="whitetable"

| colspan="6" | '''''Hu gwe ndudu i li dede.'''''

| colspan="6" | ''The man and the frog became each other.''

Reflexive pronouns may be formed by suffixing ''-zu'' onto any of the personal pronouns. In the first and second persons, the ''-zu'' is only used emphatically and otherwise dropped. In the third person, it is the ''zu'' that is kept, with the ''de'' disappearing.

! Person !! Singular !! Exclusive Plural !! Inclusive of 3<small>^rd</small> !! Inclusive of 2<small>^nd</small>

! 1<small>^st</small> ABS

| na(zu) || wena(zu) || wena(zu) || wana(zu)

! 1<small>^st</small> GEN

| nga(zu) || vyena(zu) || vyena(zu) || wona(zu)

! 2<small>^nd</small> ABS

| wo(zu) || vyewa(zu) || wade(zu) || -

! 3<small>^rd</small> ABS

| (de) zu || (dwe) zu / (de we) zu || - || -

! 3<small>^rd</small> GEN

=====Indefinite pronouns=====

===NP clauses===