| Berik | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Indonesia |
| Region | Tor Atas district,Sarmi Regency |
Native speakers | (1,200 cited 1994)[1] |
Foja Range (Tor–Kwerba) | |
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | bkl |
| Glottolog | beri1254 |
Berik is aPapuan language spoken inIndonesia. Speakers are located in four village groups on theTor River, inSarmi Regency,Papua Province.[2]
US linguistJohn McWhorter cited Berik as an example of a language which puts concepts "together in ways more fascinatingly different from English than most of us are aware".[3] Illustrating this, in the phraseKitobana (meaning "[he] gives three large objects to a male in the sunlight"), affixes indicating time of day, object number, object size, and gender of recipient are added to the verb.[3]
In Sarmi, Berik is spoken in:[1]
| Labial | Alveolar | (Alveolo-) palatal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m[m] | n[n] | ng[ŋ] | ||
| Plosive & affricate | voiceless | p[p] | t[t] | k[k] | |
| voiced | b[b] | d[d] | j[d͡ʑ] | g[ɡ] | |
| Fricative | f[f] | s[s] | |||
| Approximant | l[l] | y[j] | w[w] | ||
| Tap | r[ɾ] | ||||
Berik has the common six vowel system (/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, and /u/ plus /ə/).[4]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i[i] | u[u] | |
| Mid | e[e] | ə[ə] | o[o] |
| Open | a[a] |
Westrum (1988:150) briefly indicates that Berik encodes whether the action takes place during the day (diurnal) or during the night (nocturnal) in the verb morphology, a rare case ofperiodic tense whose markers are not easily segmentable.[5]
| Period | Present | Past | Future |
|---|---|---|---|
| Diurnal | gulbana | gulbanant | gulbafa |
| Nocturnal | gulbasa | gulbafant | gubafa |
