Kuot language


The Kuot language, or Panaras, is a language isolate, the only non-Austronesian language spoken on the island of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Lindström estimates that there are 1,500 fluent speakers of Kuot. Perhaps due to the small speaker base, there are no significant dialects present within Kuot. It is spoken in 10 villages, including Panaras village of Sentral Niu Ailan Rural LLG in New Ireland Province.

Locations

Kuot is spoken in the following 10 villages. The first five villages are located on the eastern coast, and the last five on the western coast in New Ireland. Geographical coordinates are also provided for each village.
  • Kama
  • Bol
  • Fanafiliuo
  • Liedan
  • Kabi
  • Naiama
  • Panaras
  • Naliut
  • Nakalakalap
  • Patlangat
  • Bimun
Combined, the two villages of Naliut and Nakalakalap are known as Neiruaran. Most of the villages are located in Sentral Niu Ailan Rural LLG, though some of the eastern villages, such as Kama and Bol, are located in Tikana Rural LLG.
The Kuot variety described by Lindström is that of Bimun village.

Language contact

in some Austronesian languages of New Ireland, namely Lamasong, Madak, Barok, Nalik, and Kara, may have diffused via influence from Kuot.

Status

Kuot is an endangered language and most children, if not all, grow up speaking Tok Pisin instead.

Phonology

Consonants

The following table contains Kuot's consonants:

Vowels

The vowels /i/ and /u/ tend to become glide-vowels in occurrence with other vowels. The length of the vowels is not making differences for the meaning of words. The appearance of /i/ and /u/ with other vowels can not be seen as diphthong or a combination of vowel and glide-vowel. There are never more than three vowels per syllable. The combination of diphthong and vowel is also possible but they are pronounced in conditions of the syllable. Diphthongs are spoken like one sound.
The following table contains Kuot's vowels:
FrontBack
Close
Mid
Open

Morphophonemic alternations

't' to 'r' alternation

The phoneme in certain possessive markers, such as "-tuaŋ", "-tuŋ" and "-tuo" becomes when it comes after a stem ending in a vowel. Compare:
  • ira-ruaŋ – my father
  • luguan-tuaŋ – my house
  • i'rama-ruo – my eye
  • nebam-tuaŋ – my feather

    Vowel shortening

Where the third person singular masculine suffix "-oŋ" is used on a noun that ends with a vowel, this vowel is typically not pronounced. For instance, "amaŋa-oŋ" is pronounced, not.

Voicing rule

When vowel-initial suffixes are added to stems that end in voiceless consonants, those consonants become voiced. For example:
  • he splits it
  • he drinks
  • he prays
The phoneme becomes, not.
Kuot is the only Papuan language that has VSO word order.
The morphology of the language is primarily agglutinative. There are two grammatical genders, male and female, and distinction is made in the first person between singular, dual, and plural, as well as between exclusive and inclusive.
For instance, the sentence parak-oŋ ira-ruaŋ kamin literally means 'my father eats sweet potato'. Parak-oŋ is a continuous aspect of the verb meaning 'to eat', ira means 'father', -ruaŋ is a suffix used to indicate inalienable possession, and kamin is a simple noun meaning 'sweet potato'.

Noun declensions

Kuot nouns can be singular, dual, or plural. Below are some noun declension paradigms in Kuot :

Vocabulary

The following basic vocabulary words are from Lindström, as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database: