| Kobon | |
| States: | Papua New Guinea |
| Region: | Madang Province, Middle Ramu District, and Western Highlands Province on Kaironk River in lower Jimi River area north of Mt. Hagen |
| Speakers: | 10,000 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Speakers2: | 4,000 monolinguals (2007?) |
| Familycolor: | Papuan |
| Fam1: | Trans–New Guinea |
| Fam2: | Madang |
| Fam3: | Rai Coast–Kalam |
| Fam4: | Kalam |
| Fam5: | Kalam–Kobon |
| Iso3: | kpw |
| Glotto: | kobo1249 |
| Glottorefname: | Kobon |
| Notice: | IPA |
Kobon (pronounced pronounced as /[xombon]/, pronounced as /[k͡xombon]/ or pronounced as /[kʰombon]/) is a language of Papua New Guinea. It has somewhere around 90–120 verbs.
Kobon has a pandanus language, spoken when harvesting karuka.[1]
Kobon is spoken in Madang Province and Western Highlands Province, north of Mount Hagen.
Monophthongal vowels are pronounced as //i e ɨ ə a o u//, diphthongs are pronounced as //ai̯ au̯//. pronounced as //i// and pronounced as //u// may be pronounced as /[jɪ]/ and pronounced as /[wʊ~ʍʊ]/ word-initially. pronounced as //ɨ// (pronounced as /[ɨ~ɯ]/) is written and pronounced as //ə// (pronounced as /[ɜ~ɘ~ɪ]/) is written .
Only pronounced as //i a u// and the diphthongs occur word-initially, apart from the quotative particle, which is variably /a~e~o~ö/. pronounced as //e o// occur syllable-initially within a word. All vowels (including the diphthongs) occur syllable-medially (in CVC syllables), syllable-finally and at the ends of words. Many vowel sequences occur, including some with identical vowels.
Kobon distinguishes an alveolar lateral pronounced as //l//, a palatal lateral pronounced as //ʎ//, a subapical retroflex lateral flap pronounced as // // (pronounced as /ɭ̆/ ), and a fricative trill pronounced as //r̝//, though the frication on the latter is variable.
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Pharyngeal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| lenis obstruent | mb [p~b~mb~mpʰ] | nd [tʰ~d~nd~ntʰ] | ndʑ [dʑ~ɲdʑ~ɲtɕ] | ŋɡ [k~ɡ~ɣ~ŋɡ~ŋkʰ] | ||
| fortis obstruent | f [f~ɸ~β~v~ʋ~p̚] | s | tɕ [tɕ~dʑ] | x [kʰ~kx~x~ɣ] | ||
| lateral | l [l~ɬ] | ʎ | ||||
| rhotic | r [ɾ̝̊~ɾ̥~ɾ~r̝̊~r̥~r] | [ɭ~ɽ~ɽ̊] | ||||
| approximant | w | j | ħ [h] |
Voiced obstruents may be prenasalized after vowels, depending on the preceding consonant, and are voiceless word-initially. Liquids other than pronounced as //ʎ// tend toward final devoicing. For example, final pronounced as //d// is pronounced as /[ntʰ]/ and final pronounced as //l// tends to pronounced as /[ɬ]/. (pronounced as //w// and pronounced as //j// do not occur in final position, while nasals and pronounced as //ʎ// retain voicing.) Voiceless consonants other than pronounced as //s// and pronounced as //h// are optionally voiced between vowels.
is sublaminal retroflex. It has been described as a lateral flap, pronounced as /[ ]/.
All consonants occur syllable initially, though pronounced as //ŋ// only occurs word-initially in a single mimetic word. All consonants but pronounced as //h j w// occur syllable- and word-finally. Clusters occur in many (C)VC.CV(C) words, as well as initially in a handful of mostly monosyllabic CCV(C) words. Attested initial clusters are pronounced as //bɽ, xɽ, fr, xl//.
| word-initially | intervocalically | word-finally | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ɾ̥~ɾ̝̊ | ɾ~r | ɾ̥~ɾ̝̊~r̥~r̝̊~ɾ~r | ||
| ɽ | ɭ~ɽ~ɽ̊ | |||
| l | ɬ~l | |||
| kʰ~k͜x~x also ɣ intervocalically | ||||
| ɸ~f | β~ʋ[3] (occas. v) | ɸ~p̚ | ||
| t͡ɕ | t͡ɕ~d͡ʑ | t͡ɕ | ||
| ɡ~k | ɡ~ɣ, ŋ͡ɡ | ŋ͡kʰ | ||
| d͡ʑ | d͡ʑ, ɲ͡d͡ʑ | ɲ͡t͡ɕ | ||
| d | d, n͜d | n͜tʰ (occas. tʰ) | ||
| b (occas. p) | b, m͜b | m͡pʰ | ||
Intervocalically, the lenis obstruents are oral pronounced as /[b d dʑ ɡ~ɣ]/ when a nasal or another lenis obstruent occurs in the preceding syllable, and are prenasalized pronounced as /[mb nd ɲdʑ ŋɡ]/ otherwise, with some variability after pronounced as //h//. They are often oral in a medial cluster after another consonant. Otherwise the allophones in the table above are largely in free variation.
Kobon is a subject–object–verb language.
Singular, dual, and plural are distinguished in personal pronouns and kinship terminology.
Like the other Kalam languages, Kobon is famous for having a closed set of very small number of verbs—perhaps less than 120 for the entire language. These verbs are combined other verbs, in serial verb constructions, and with nouns into phrases with specific meanings, much as one says "have dinner" rather than "dine" in English.
This makes for an interesting window into semantics. One might expect that with a very limited set of verbs, their meanings would be quite general as have, do, be and go are in English. To a certain extent this is really the case, as there is for example only one verb of perception. That is, the same verb is used for see, hear, taste, smell, feel (both physically and emotionally), think, and understand (compare with "I see" for "I understand" in English). Another verb is used for making sound, whether it's speaking, singing, praying, crying, twigs breaking, rocks clattering, or water gurgling. However, some Kobon verbs are quite specific. There is one exception for sound, for example: there's a specific verb for calling a pig. There are also three verbs of pouring, depending on whether the thing being poured is solid, liquid, or food; and there is even a verb that means to quarter a cassowary.
Kobon has been written in the Latin alphabet for over 30 years. The special letters ƚ and ɫ are used for the subapical retroflex lateral flap and palatal lateral, respectively.
a b c d e g h i j k l ƚ ɫ m n ñ ŋ o ö p r s u ü w y
5 - 15% of Kobon speakers are literate.