Massep (Masep, Potafa, Wotaf) is a poorly documented Papuan languages spoken by fewer than 50 people in the single village of Masep in West Pantai District, Sarmi Regency, Papua. Despite the small number of speakers, however, language use is vigorous. It is surrounded by the Kwerba languages, namely Airoran language and Samarokena.
Classification
Clouse, Donohue, and Ma (2002) did not notice connections to any other language family.
,
Glottolog, and Foley (2018)
list it as a
language isolate.
[Usher, Timothy. West Foja Range. New Guinea World.] The pronouns are not dissimilar from those of Trans–New Guinea languages, but Massep is geographically distant from that family.
Phonology
Consonants:
-
Some probable consonant leniting sound changes from pre-Massep proposed by Foley (2018):
-
*p > ɸ
-
*b > β
-
*d > r
-
*k > ɣ (perhaps partially)
Vowels:
-
Pronouns
Pronouns are:
-
Morphology
Massep case suffixes as quoted by Foley (2018) from Clouse (2002):
>|
! suffix !! case |
| accusative |
| dative |
| instrumental |
| associative |
| locative |
| allative |
| temporal |
Sentences
Massep sentences as quoted by Foley (2018) from Clouse (2002):
Word order is SOV.
External links
-
Timothy Usher & Mark Donohue, Masep, New Guinea World
