Eipo (Eipomek), or Lik, is a Mek language of the eastern highlands of Eipumek District, Pegunungan Bintang Regency, Highland Papua. It spoken by the Eipo people who live along the Eipo River. A large percentage of its vocabulary is shared with Una and Tanime, and they form one dialect area.[2]

Eipo
Lik
Native toIndonesia
RegionEipo River area in Eipumek District, Pegunungan Bintang Regency, Highland Papua
EthnicityEipo people
Native speakers
(3,000 cited 1987)[1]
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3eip
Glottologeipo1242

Classification

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Eipo belongs to the Eastern branch of Mek languages, which is a family of closely related languages belonging to the larger grouping of Trans-New Guinea languages.

Geographic distribution

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The Eipo language is spoken by about 3,000 people along the Eipo River in the valley of Eipomek, which is situated in the eastern highlands of Highland Papua.[1]

Phonology

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Consonants

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Eipo exhibits the following 16 phonemic consonants:[3]

Consonant phonemes
  Bilabial Labio-
dental
Alveolar Palatal Velar
Plosive p b     t d c   k ɡ
Fricative   β f   s          
Nasal   m       n       ŋ
Tap or flap           ɾ        
Approximant               j    
  • /p/ indicates a labialized [pʷɵ].[4]
  • /c/ indicates a palatalized [tʲ].[4]

Vowels

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Eipo has five phonemic vowels:[3]

Monophthong phonemes
  Front Central Back
Close i   u
Open-mid e   o
Open   a  

Diphthongs are not regarded as separate phonemes.[3]

Grammar

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Morphology

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Eipo is generally isolating language, but exhibits an elaborate system of agglutination in verb formation.

Syntax

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The usual word order of Eipo is subject-object-verb (SOV).

Deictics

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Eipo has only four basic spatial deictics, which are usually accompanied by pointing gestures, since the deictics are used during face-to-face communication to refer to positions relative to the person.[5]: 119 

  • a- ‘here’
  • ei- ‘up there’
  • ou-, u- ‘down there’
  • or-, er- ‘across there’ (‘across-valley’)

Interrogatives

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Eipo has many compound interrogatives:[5]: 95 

  • yate ‘what?, which?, what kind of?’
    • yate anye ‘who?’
    • yate ate ‘why? (what for)’
    • yate arye ‘why? (what reason)’
    • yate-barye ‘why?’
    • yate-sum ‘when? (what day/time)’
  • dan- ‘where?, where to, whence’
    • dan-segum ‘whereabouts? (approximate location)’
    • dan-tam ("where side") ‘where, whence, whereto’
    • dan-ak ("where at") ‘where, whence, whereto’

Writing system

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Eipo is not historically a written language, but in recent decades a Latin alphabet has been devised for it. The letter values are mostly those of the IPA letters given above, with the exceptions of /β/ ⟨w⟩, /ŋ/ ⟨ng⟩, /ɾ/ ⟨r⟩, and /j/ ⟨y⟩.

References

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  1. ^ a b Eipo at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)  
  2. ^ Heeschen 1998, p. 18.
  3. ^ a b c Heeschen 1998, p. 117.
  4. ^ a b Heeschen 1998, p. 118.
  5. ^ a b Pawley, Andrew; Hammarström, Harald (2018). "The Trans New Guinea family". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 21–196. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
  • Heeschen, Volker (1998). An Ethnographic Grammar of the Eipo Language (spoken in the central mountains of Irian Jaya (West New Guinea), Indonesia). Berlin: Reimer.
  • Heeschen, Volker and Wulf Schiefenhövel. 1983. Wörterbuch der Eiposprache: Eipo-Deutsch-Englisch. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.