| Wiru | |
| Also Known As: | Witu |
| States: | Papua New Guinea |
| Region: | Ialibu-Pangia District, Southern Highlands Province |
| Ethnicity: | Wiru |
| Speakers: | 15,300 |
| Date: | 1967, repeated 1981 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | Papuan |
| Fam1: | Papuan Gulf ? |
| Fam2: | Teberan–Pawaian[1] |
| Iso3: | wiu |
| Glotto: | wiru1244 |
| Glottorefname: | Wiru |
| Script: | Latin |
| Map: | Wiru language.svg |
| Mapcaption: | Map: The Wiru language of New Guinea |
Wiru or Witu is the language spoken by the Wiru people of Ialibu-Pangia District of the Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. The language has been described by Harland Kerr, a missionary who lived in the Wiru community for many years. Kerr's work with the community produced a Wiru Bible translation and several unpublished dictionary manuscripts,[2] as well as Kerr's Master's thesis on the structure of Wiru verbs.[3]
There are a considerable number of resemblances with the Engan languages, suggesting Wiru might be a member of that family, but language contact has not been ruled out as the reason. Usher classifies it with the Teberan languages.
| Labial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| Plosive | voiceless | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||
| prenasal | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Liquid | (pronounced as /ink/) | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Open | pronounced as /link/ |
Trans–New Guinea–like pronouns are no 1sg (< *na) and ki-wi 2pl, ki-ta 2du (< *ki).
The following basic vocabulary words are from Franklin (1973,[5] 1975),[6] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:[7]
| gloss | Wiru | |
|---|---|---|
| head | tobou | |
| hair | pine; píne | |
| ear | kabidi | |
| eye | lene | |
| nose | timini | |
| tooth | kime | |
| tongue | keke; keké | |
| leg | kawa | |
| louse | nomo; nomò | |
| dog | tue | |
| pig | kaì | |
| bird | ini; inì | |
| egg | mu̧ | |
| blood | kamate | |
| bone | tono | |
| skin | kepene | |
| breast | adu | |
| tree | yomo; yomò | |
| man | ali | |
| woman | atoa; atòa | |
| sun | lou; loú | |
| moon | tokene | |
| water | ue; uè | |
| fire | toe | |
| stone | kue; kué | |
| name | ibini; ibíni | |
| eat | nakò; one ne nako | |
| one | odene | |
| two | takuta; ta kutà |
Wiru has a general noun-modifying clause construction.[8] In this construction, a noun can be modified by a clause that immediately precedes it. The noun may, but need not, correspond to an argument of the modifying clause. Such constructions can be used to express a wide range of semantic relationships between clause and noun. The follow examples all use the same noun-modifying clause construction:
The noun-modifying clause construction imposes a falling tone on the head noun. That is, no matter what the lexical tone of the noun that is being modified is, it takes on a high-low tone pattern when it is modified in a noun-modifying clause construction.
Wiru reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are:[9]