Tehit language explained

Tehit
Nativename:	Kaibus
Region:	Papua
Ethnicity:	Tehit
States:	Indonesia
Pushpin Map:	Indonesia_Western New Guinea#Indonesia
Coordinates:	-1.51°N 131.99°W
Speakers:	10,000
Date:	2000
Ref:	e25
Speakers2:	500 monolinguals (2000)
Familycolor:	Papuan
Fam1:	West Papuan?
Fam2:	Bird's Head
Fam3:	West Bird's Head
Iso3:	kps
Glotto:	tehi1237
Glottorefname:	Tehit

Tehit is a Papuan language of the Bird's Head Peninsula of New Guinea. Other spellings are Tahit, Tehid, and other names Kaibus, Teminabuan. Dialects are Tehit Jit, Mbol Fle, Saifi, Imyan, Sfa Riere, Fkar, Sawiat Salmeit.

Subdivisions

Subgroups

Major Tehit ethnic subgroups:^[1]

Locations of some Tehit subgroups:^[1]

Tehit Mlafle and Tehit Mlakya, in Teminabuan District: Kaibus, Werisar, Keyen, Boldon, Seribau, Srer, and Sria villages.
Tehit Konda, in Konda District: Konda, Mnaelek, and Mbariat villages.
Tehit Nakya, in Saifi District: Malaswat, Manggroholo, Sira, Kwowok, Komanggaret, Sayal, Kayabo, Botaen, Sisir, and Knaya villages.
Tehit Imian, in Seremuk District: Gamaro, Tofot, Haha, Woloin, and Kakas villages.
Tehit Nasfa, in Sawiyat District: Wenslolo, Wensnahan, Wensi villages.

Clans

Tehit clans:^[1]

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Plosive	plain	p b	t d		ɡ	q
Plosive	prenasal	ᵐp ᵐb	ⁿt ⁿd		ᵑɡ	ᶰq
Fricative		ɸ	s				h
Nasal		m	n
Tap			ɾ
Approximant		(w)	l	(j)

Glide sounds [w, j] mainly occur as a result of vowels /o, i/ in different syllable positions.
/q/ can be heard as a fricative [ʁ] when in intervocalic positions, and as a velar [k] when in coda position within the onset of /i/.
/d/ can also be heard as an affricate [dʒ] when preceding /i/ in word segments.
Sounds /t, q/ are mainly unreleased [t̚, q̚] in when in word-final positions.
Fricatives /ɸ, s/ can optionally be voiced as [β, z] when within the environment of /i/, among speech.^[2]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i
Mid	e	(ə)	o
Low		a

A schwa [ə] vowel sound is said to occur only in pretonic positions, which means in syllables preceding the stressed syllable. It is always heard as unstressed, and always in between consonant sounds.^[3] ^[4]
/i/ can be heard as [ɪ] when preceding a word-final /ɾ/, and as [ɨ] when preceding vowel sounds /a, o/ within the onset of a labial consonant.
/e/ can be heard as [ɛ] when in closed syllables.
/o/ may also have an allophone of [u] when in closed syllables within a labial consonantal onset with a back coda consonant.

Morphology

Tehit has four grammatical genders, which are masculine, feminine, plural, and neuter. Examples:^[5]

gender	suffix	examples
masculine	-w	ndla-w ‘husband’, sna-w ‘moon’, qliik-w ‘snake’
feminine	-m	-ene-m ‘mother’, tali-m ‘sun’, mbol-m ‘house’
plural	-y	sinas-y ‘small mosquito’, sinaq-y ‘gravel’, siray ‘salt’
neuter	zero	n/a

Gender prefixes in Tehit can not only be used to denote gender, but also size, wholeness, and the stability of appearances. Masculine gender is associated with small size, parts of wholes, and changing appearances, while feminine gender is associated with large size, wholeness, and stable appearances. Examples (from Flassy 1991: 10–12):

Notes and References

Book: Ronsumbre, Adolof . 2020 . Ensiklopedia Suku Bangsa di Provinsi Papua Barat . Yogyakarta . Penerbit Kepel Press . 978-602-356-318-0.
Book: Hesse, Ronald . Imyan Tehit Phonology . Grand Forks: Univ. of North Dakota . 1993.
Book: Hesse, Ronald . Syllable structure in Imyan Tehit . 1995 . Language and Linguistics in Melanesia 26 . 101-171.
Book: Hesse, Ronald . Tehit . Jakarta, Indonesia: Jakarta: Universitas Katolik Indonesia Atma Jaya . 2000 . In Ger P. Reesink (ed.), Studies in Irian Languages: Part II . 25-33.
Book: Holton . Gary . Klamer . Marian . Palmer . Bill . 2018 . The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide . The Papuan languages of East Nusantara and the Bird’s Head . The World of Linguistics . 4 . Berlin . De Gruyter Mouton . 569–640 . 978-3-11-028642-7.