South Bougainville languages explained

South Bougainville
Also Known As:	East Bougainville
Region:	Bougainville Island
Familycolor:	Papuan
Family:	One of the world's primary language families
Glotto:	sout2948
Glottorefname:	South Bougainville
Child1:	Buinic
Child2:	Nasioiic
Map:	Solomons language families.png
Mapcaption:	Language families of the Solomon Islands.

The South Bougainville or East Bougainville languages are a small language family spoken on the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. They were classified as East Papuan languages by Stephen Wurm, but this does not now seem tenable, and was abandoned in Ethnologue (2009).

Classification

Glottolog v4.8 presents the following classification for the South Bougainville languages:^[1]

Proto-South Bougainville

Pronouns

Ross reconstructed three pronoun paradigms for proto-South Bougainville, free forms plus agentive and patientive (see morphosyntactic alignment) affixes:

	I	we	you	s/he, they
free	ni(ŋ)	nee DL *ni PL	da SG *dee DL *dai PL	ba SG *bee DL *bai PL
patientive	-m		-d	-b
agentive	a	o	i or *e	u

SG: singular; DL: dual; PL: plural

Lexicon

A detailed historical-comparative study of South Bougainville has been carried out by Evans (2009).^[2] Reconstructed Proto-South Bougainville lexicon from Evans (2009):

Proto-South Bougainville reconstructed lexicon

Gloss	Proto-South Bougainville
blood	ereŋ
bone	kōna
ear	rome
eye	rutɔ
fat, grease	titi
guts	kō
hand (arm)	komɔ
head	bore
knee	mī
left (hand)	mɔre-
liver	nonɔŋ
neck	kuru
nose	keni
right (hand)	mē-
tongue	meneŋ
wing	kupɔ
three	be-
four	kɔre-
ten	nɔraŋ
brother (older of male)	batato
brother (older of male)	tāta
child	tōtō
daughter (my)	norɔ
father	bomɔ
husband	bɔ[m,ŋ]
man	nugaŋ
mother	bōko
person	nɔmm[e,ai]
name	mīŋ
son (my)	nuri
wife	bana
cloud	kɔmo
dust	rɔmo
garden	kɔti
island	mɔto
ocean	maira
sand	piti(a)
sea	piruŋ
sky	pɔn(iŋ)
smoke	ī
sun	rua
water	doŋ
betelnut	mōti
branch	āgu
coconut (tree)	mou
fruit, seed	tinaŋ
leaf	pɔda
mango	baiti
sugarcane	tɔnɔŋ
sweet potato	(*ane)
tobacco	buru
tree	koi
(tree) trunk	mono
bird	bɔrege
dog	masika
eel	baramɔ
fowl, chicken	kokore
rat	koto
bad	orara
big	pɔn(n)ɔ
black	muŋ[i,o]
cold	kamari
dirty	kumi
far	iti-
hungry	perɔ
long, tall	iti-
old	uri-
sick	tipɔ
thick	mōtu
warm, hot	tɔkɔtɔkɔ
white	kākɔtɔ
fall	ru-
flow	tū
go	be-
push	tūme
put	ti-
turn	bero-
breathe, live	roma-
cough	k(o)u-
die	bō
drink, eat	nai
hear	tarɔ-
sleep	ati-
smell	nū-
spit	tutu-
suck	muti-

Austronesian influence

South Bougainville words of likely Proto-Oceanic origin:^[3]

language	family	pig	fence	left	fish	back	shark
	South Bougainville	polo	para	akona-	kalege	vilo	—
	South Bougainville	poro	parang	mare-	taki	bilo'	—
	South Bougainville	uuru	holo	mori-	iana	muure	paaoi
	South Bougainville	huuru	horo	mori-	koringi	muuri	pakoi
Proto-Oceanic	Austronesian	borok	bara	mawiri	ikan	muri-	bakiwa
	Austronesian	boo	barabara	mairi-	iala	mudi-	vavoi
	Austronesian	boro	bara		iana	pou-	bakubaku
	Austronesian	boʔo	—	karaka	iana	aro-	baʔoi

Typology

South Bougainville languages have SOV word order, unlike the SVO Oceanic languages.^[3]

See also

• Papuan languages
• North Bougainville languages

References

• Structural Phylogenetics and the Reconstruction of Ancient Language History. Michael Dunn, Angela Terrill, Ger Reesink, Robert A. Foley, Stephen C. Levinson. Science magazine, 23 Sept. 2005, vol. 309, p 2072.
• Malcolm Ross (2005). "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages." In: Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Robin Hide and Jack Golson, eds, Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples, 15-66. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Glottolog 4.8 - South Bougainville . 2023-07-10 . 2023-10-18 . . Hammarström . Harald . https://web.archive.org/web/20230824190049/glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/sout2948 . 2023-08-24 . live . . Harald Hammarström . Forkel . Robert . . 10.5281/zenodo.7398962 . Haspelmath . Martin . Martin Haspelmath . Bank . Sebastian . free.
2. Evans, Bethwyn. 2009. Beyond pronouns: further evidence for South Bougainville. In Bethwyn Evans (ed.), Discovering history through language: Papers in honour of Malcolm Ross, 73-101. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.
3. Book: Stebbins . Tonya . Evans . Bethwyn . Terrill . Angela . Palmer . Bill . 2018 . The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide . The Papuan languages of Island Melanesia . The World of Linguistics . 4 . Berlin . De Gruyter Mouton . 775–894 . 978-3-11-028642-7.