Iwal language
Iwal is an Austronesian language spoken by about 1,900 people from nine villages in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. Although it appears most closely related to the South Huon Gulf languages, it is the most conservative member of its subgroup.
Name
The term Iwal is an endonym. Cognates in other related languages include Yabem Iwac and Numbami Yuwala.Phonology
Iwal distinguishes 5 vowels and 16 consonants. Unlike most of its neighboring languages, it distinguishes the lateral /l/ from the trill /r/, the latter derived from earlier *s, as in aru from Proto-Oceanic *qasu 'smoke', ruru- from POc *susu 'breast', and ur from POc * 'rain'. Otherwise it appears to be the most phonologically conservative language in the South Huon Gulf chain. It has retained POc *t as /t/ and POc *mw as /mw/, as in mwat 'snake' from POc *mwata.Consonants
is only heard in word-medial position.Morphology
Deictics
Iwal deictics correlate with first, second, and third person, each of which has a long and a short form. The latter appear to be anaphoric in usage. Deictics also serve to bracket relative clauses: ete/ebe... ok/nok/nik. By far the most common brackets are ebe... ok, but if the information in the clause is associated with either speaker or addressee, the brackets are likely to be ete... nik or ete... nok. Deictics may occur either in place of nouns or postposed to nouns, as in 'that earth/soil'.- 'near speaker'
- 'near addressee'
- 'away from speaker or addressee'
Numerals
Traditional Iwal counting practices started with the digits of the left hand, then continued on the right hand, and then the feet to reach '20', which translates as 'one person'. Higher numbers are multiples of 'one person'. Nowadays, most counting above '5' is done in Tok Pisin; in the Iwal New Testament, all numbers above '5'—except bage isgabu '10'—are written with Arabic numerals and most likely read in Tok Pisin.| Numeral | Term | Gloss |
| 1 | dongke/ti | 'one' |
| 2 | ailu | 'two' |
| 3 | aitol | 'three' |
| 4 | aivat | 'four' |
| 5 | bage tavlu | 'hands half/part' |
| 6 | bage tavlu ano dongke | 'hands half right one' |
| 7 | bage tavlu ano ailu | 'hands half right two' |
| 8 | bage tavlu ano aitol | 'hands half right three' |
| 9 | bage tavlu ano aivat | 'hands half right four' |
| 10 | bage isgabu | 'hands both/pair' |
| 15 | bage isgabu be va tavlu | 'hands both and feet half' |
| 20 | buni amol ti | ' person one' |
| 100 | buni amol bage tavlu | ' person hands half ' |
Bioclassifying prefixes
One unusual feature of Iwal is a small set of bioclassifying prefixes: ei- for trees, wer- for edible greens, for birds, ih- for fish.- 'canoe, canoe tree'
- 'mango tree'
- 'two-leaf, Gnetum gnemon, a tree with paired edible leaves'
- 'cabbage'
- 'pigeon'
- 'cassowary'
- 'Spanish mackerel'