Mussau-Emira language

The Mussau-Emira language is spoken on the islands of Mussau and Emirau in the St Matthias Islands in the Bismarck Archipelago.

Mussau-Emira distinguishes the following consonants.

• Fricative sounds /β, ɣ/ may also be heard as voiced stop sounds [b, ɡ] in word-initial position and when geminated.

In most words the primary stress falls on the penultimate vowel and secondary stresses fall on every second syllable preceding that. This is true of suffixed forms as well, as in níma 'hand', nimá-gi 'my hand'; níu 'coconut', niúna 'its coconut'.

Prefixes mark the subjects of each verb:

• (agi) a-namanama 'I'm eating'
• (io) u-namanama 'you're (sing.) eating'
• (ia) e-namanama 'he's/she's eating'

1. kateva
2. galua
3. kotolu
4. gaata
5. galima
6. gaonomo
7. gaitu
8. gaoalu
9. kasio
10. kasaŋaulu

• Blust, Robert (1984). "A Mussau vocabulary, with phonological notes." In Malcolm Ross, Jeff Siegel, Robert Blust, Michael A. Colburn, W. Seiler, Papers in New Guinea Linguistics, No. 23, 159-208. Series A-69. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.doi:10.15144/PL-A69hdl:1885/145028
• Ross, Malcolm (1988). Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian languages of western Melanesia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.doi:10.15144/PL-C98hdl:1885/145428
• Mussau Grammar Essentials by John and Marjo Brownie (Data Papers on Papua New Guinea Languages, volume 52). 2007. Ukarumpa: SIL.[1]

• Kaipuleohone has archived a word list of Mussau language
• Materials on Mussau-Emira are included in the open access Arthur Capell (AC1) and Malcolm Ross (MR1) collections held by Paradisec.