| Kaure | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Indonesia |
| Region | Papua: Aurina, Harna, Lereh, Masta, and Wes villages on the Nawa River |
Native speakers | (450 cited 1995) |
Kaure–Kosare
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | bpp |
| Glottolog | kaur1271 |
| ELP | |
Map: The Kaure, Kapori, and Kosare languages of New Guinea
The Kaure, Kapori, and Kosare languages
Other Trans–New Guinea languages
Other Papuan languages
Austronesian languages
Uninhabited | |
Kaure is a Papuan language of West Papua. It is spoken in the villages of Lereh, Harna, Wes, Masta, and Aurina.
Narau is either a dialect or a closely related language. It is known from a short word list in Giël (1959). Texts include Auri et al. (1991).
The Kaure consonants are:: 456
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | ||
| voiced | ᵐb | ⁿd | ʤ | |||
| Fricative | s | h | ||||
| Liquid | l | |||||
| Semivowel | w | j | ||||
The Kaure vowels are:: 456
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i, y | |
| Mid | e | o |
| Open | a |
Like the Lakes Plain languages, Kaure is a tonal language. There are two tones, namely high and low.: 456
Monosyllabic minimal pairs showing phonemic tone contrast include:
In multisyllabic words, only one stressed syllable carries full tone contrasts, while the other syllables are "neutral" or toneless.: 456
Multisyllabic minimal sets include:
Attested pronouns are 1sg wẽ, 2sg hane, 1pl nene. The 2sg form resembles Mek *ka-n, and 1pl resembles Pauwasi numu~nin, but apart from that little can be said.
Kaure pronouns listed by Foley (2018) are:
| Independent | Possessive prefixes | |
|---|---|---|
| 1excl | wen | na- |
| 1incl | nene | nene- |
| 2 | hane | ha- |
| 3 | nene | ne- |
Kaure pronouns are not specified for number, just like in Nimboran.
Voorhoeve (1975) suggested that Kaure was related to Kapori and Kosare, two otherwise unclassified languages. However, subsequent evaluations have not found any significant connections (Rumaropen 2006, Wambaliau 2006).