| Kuot | |
|---|---|
| Panaris | |
| Native to | Papua New Guinea |
| Region | New Ireland (10 villages) |
Native speakers | 1,500 (2002)[1] |
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | kto |
| Glottolog | kuot1243 |
| ELP | Kuot |
 Kuot is classified as Vulnerable by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger. | |
  Kuot | |
| Coordinates:3°07′22″S151°29′08″E / 3.122883°S 151.485644°E /-3.122883; 151.485644 (Panaras) | |
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TheKuot language, orPanaras, is alanguage isolate, the only non-Austronesian language spoken on the island ofNew Ireland,Papua New Guinea. Lindström (2002: 30) estimates that there are 1,500 fluent speakers of Kuot.[1] Perhaps due to the small speaker base, there are no significant dialects present within Kuot.[2] It is spoken in 10 villages, including Panaras village (3°07′22″S151°29′08″E / 3.122883°S 151.485644°E /-3.122883; 151.485644 (Panaras)) ofSentral Niu Ailan Rural LLG in New Ireland Province.
Kuot is spoken in the following 10 villages. The first five villages are located on the eastern coast, and the last five on the western coast inNew Ireland.[1]: 29 Geographical coordinates are also provided for each village.[3]
Combined, the two villages of Naliut and Nakalakalap are known as Neiruaran (3°08′38″S151°32′50″E / 3.14398°S 151.547271°E /-3.14398; 151.547271 (Neiruaran)). Most of the villages are located inSentral Niu Ailan Rural LLG, though some of the eastern villages, such as Kama and Bol, are located inTikana Rural LLG.
The Kuot variety described by Lindström (2002) is that of Bimun village.
Lenition in someAustronesian languages ofNew Ireland, namelyLamasong,Madak,Barok,Nalik, andKara, may have diffused via influence from Kuot (Ross 1994: 566).[4]
Kuot is anendangered language and most children, if not all, grow up speakingTok Pisin instead.[5]
The following table contains Kuot's consonants:
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n~ɲ | ŋ | |
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k |
| voiced | b | d | ɡ | |
| Fricative | voiceless | ɸ~f | s~ʃ | |
| voiced | β~v | |||
| Lateral | l | |||
| Flap | ɾ | |||
The vowels /i/ and /u/ tend to become glide-vowels in occurrence with other vowels. The length of the vowels is not making differences for the meaning of words. The appearance of /i/ and /u/ with other vowels can not be seen asdiphthong or a combination of vowel and glide-vowel. There are never more than three vowels per syllable. The combination of diphthong and vowel is also possible but they are pronounced in conditions of the syllable. Diphthongs are spoken like one sound.[5]
The following table contains Kuot's vowels:
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u |
| Mid | e | o |
| Open | a |
| Phoneme | Allophones |
|---|---|
| /i/ | [i~ɪ~j] |
| /e/ | [e~ɛ] |
| /a/ | [a~ʌ] |
| /u/ | [u~ʊ~w] |
| /o/ | [o~ɔ] |
The phoneme/t/ in certain possessive markers, such as "-tuaŋ", "-tuŋ" and "-tuo" becomes/r/ when it comes after a stem ending in a vowel. Compare:
Where the third person singular masculine suffix "-oŋ" is used on a noun that ends with a vowel, this vowel is typically not pronounced. For instance, "amaŋa-oŋ" is pronounced[aˈmaŋɔŋ], not[aˈmaŋaɔŋ].
When vowel-initial suffixes are added to stems that end in voiceless consonants, those consonants become voiced. For example:
The phoneme/p/ becomes[β], not[b].
Kuot is the only Papuan language that hasVSO word order.[6][7]: 920
Themorphology of the language is primarilyagglutinative. There are twogrammatical genders, male and female, and distinction is made in the first person betweensingular, dual, and plural, as well as betweenexclusive and inclusive.
For instance, the sentenceparak-oŋ ira-ruaŋ kamin literally means 'my father eats sweet potato'.Parak-oŋ is acontinuous aspect of the verb meaning 'to eat',ira means 'father',-ruaŋ is a suffix used to indicateinalienable possession ('my father'), andkamin is a simple noun meaning 'sweet potato'.
Kuot nouns can be singular, dual, or plural. Below are some noun declension paradigms in Kuot (from Stebbins, et al. (2018), based on Lindström 2002: 147–146):[8]
| Class | Noun root | Gloss | Singular | Plural | Dual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ‘plain’ | road | alaŋ | alaŋip | alaŋip-ien |
| 2 | ma | eye | irəma | irəp | irəp-ien |
| 3 | na | base (e.g. of tree) | muana | muap | muap-ien |
| 4 | bun | hen | puraibun | purailəp | purailəp-ien |
| 5 | bu | breadfruit tree | opəliobu | opələp | opələp-ien |
| 6 | uom | banana | pebuom | pebup | pebup-ien |
| 7 | bam | rib | binbam | binbəp | binbəp-ien |
| 8 | nəm | village | pianəm | pialap | pialap-ien |
| 9 | nim | name | bonim | bop | bop-ien |
| 10 | m | nit | dikkam | dikkəp | dikkəp-ien |
| 11 | n | weed | kaun | kaulup | kaulup-ien |
The following basic vocabulary words are from Lindström (2008),[9] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:[10]
| gloss | Kuot |
|---|---|
| head | bukom |
| hair | kapuruma |
| ear | kikinəm |
| eye | irəma |
| nose | akabunima; ŋof |
| tooth | laukima |
| tongue | məlobiem |
| louse | ineima |
| dog | kapuna |
| bird | amani; kobeŋ |
| egg | dəkər; səgər |
| blood | oləbuan |
| bone | muanəm |
| skin | kumalip; neip; pəppək |
| breast | sisima |
| man | mikana; teima |
| woman | makabun |
| sky | panbinim |
| moon | uləŋ |
| water | burunəm; danuot |
| fire | kit |
| stone | adəs |
| road, path | alaŋ |
| name | bonim |
| eat | o; parak |
| one | namurit |
| two | narain |