Yimas language
Sepik language spoken in Papua New Guinea / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Yimas language is spoken by the Yimas people, who populate the Sepik River Basin region of Papua New Guinea.[1] It is spoken primarily in Yimas village (4.680562°S 143.548847°E / -4.680562; 143.548847 (Yimas 1)), Karawari Rural LLG, East Sepik Province.[2] It is a member of the Lower-Sepik language family.[3]: 1 All 250-300 speakers of Yimas live in two villages along the lower reaches of the Arafundi River, which stems from a tributary of the Sepik River known as the Karawari River.[1][3]: 7
Yimas | |
---|---|
Native to | Papua New Guinea |
Region | Yimas village, Karawari Rural LLG, East Sepik Province |
Native speakers | 50 (2016)[1] |
Ramu–Lower Sepik
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | yee |
Glottolog | yima1243 |
ELP | Yimas |
Yimas is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
Coordinates: 4.680562°S 143.548847°E / -4.680562; 143.548847 (Yimas 1) |
Yimas is a polysynthetic language with (somewhat) free word order, and is an ergative-absolutive language morphologically but not syntactically, although it has several other case-like relations encoded on its verbs. It has ten main noun classes (genders), and a unique number system. Four of the noun classes are semantically determined (male humans, female humans, higher animals, plants and plantmaterial) whereas the rest are assigned on phonological bases.[3]: 119
It is an endangered language, being widely replaced by Tok Pisin, and to a lesser extent, English. It is unclear if any children are native Yimas speakers. However, a Yimas pidgin was once used as a contact language with speakers of Alamblak and Arafundi.[citation needed] Although it is still used in face-to-face conversation, it is considered a threatened language on the Ethnologue endangerment scale, with a rating of 6b.[1][3]: 4–5