Iwam language

May River Iwam, often simply referred to as Iwam, is a language of East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea.

It is spoken in Iyomempwi (4°14′28″S 141°53′34″E / 4.24117°S 141.89271°E / -4.24117; 141.89271 (Imombi)), Mowi (4°17′42″S 141°55′45″E / 4.294971°S 141.929199°E / -4.294971; 141.929199 (Mowi)), and Premai villages of Tunap/Hunstein Rural LLG in East Sepik Province, and other villages on the May River.

In non-final positions, /u/ /o/, /i/, and /e/ are [ʊ] [ɔ], [ɪ], and [ɛ], respectively. /ə/ appears only in nonfinal syllables. When adjacent to nasal consonants, vowels are nasalized; nasalization may also occur when adjacent to word boundaries.

/p/ and /k/ are voiced fricatives ([β] and [ɣ]) respectively) when intervocalic and unreleased when final (/t/ is also unreleased when final). /ŋ/ is a nasal flap ([ɾ̃]) word-initially and between vowels. /s/ is [ts] initially and may otherwise be palatalized [sʲ]. Sequences of any consonant and /w/ are neutralized before /u/ where an offglide is always heard.

Bilabial and velar consonants and /n/ may be followed by /w/ when initial. Other initial clusters include /pr/, /kr/, /hr/, /hw/, and /hn/ and final clusters are /w/ or /j/ followed by any consonant except for /h/ or /ŋ/.

May River Iwam pronouns:

Like the Wogamus languages, May River Iwam has five noun classes:

As shown by the example above for ana ‘hand’, a noun can take on different classes depending on the physical characteristics being emphasized.

May river Iwam has four periodic tense suffixes: matutinal -yok, diurnal -harok, postmeridial -tep and nocturnal -wae.

The following basic vocabulary words of Iwam are from Foley (2005) and Laycock (1968), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:

• Materials on Sepic Iwam are included in the open access Arthur Capell collections (AC1) held by Paradisec.

• Laycock, D.C. (1965). "Three Upper Sepik phonologies". Oceanic Linguistics. 4 (1/2). University of Hawai'i Press: 113–118. doi:10.2307/3622917. JSTOR 3622917.