| Molof | |
|---|---|
| Poule | |
| Region | Papua: 9 villages located 100 km to the south of Jayapura; inKeerom Regency,Senggi District,Molof village |
Native speakers | 230 (2005)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | msl |
| Glottolog | molo1262 |
| ELP | Powle-Ma |
Molof (Ampas, Poule, Powle-Ma) is a poorly documentedPapuan language spoken by about 200 people inMolof village,Senggi District,Keerom Regency.[1]
Wurm (1975) placed it as an independent branch ofTrans–New Guinea, butRoss (2005) could not find enough evidence to classify it.Søren Wichmann (2018)[2] tentatively considers it to be alanguage isolate, as does Foley (2018).[3] Usher (2020) tentatively suggests it may be aPauwasi language.[4]
Molof has a small consonant inventory, but a large one for vowels.
Molof consonants, quoted by Foley (2018) from Donohue (n.d.):[3]
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | labial | plain | labial | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||
| Plosive | p | t | k | kʷ | ||
| Fricative | f | fʷ | s | |||
| Liquid | r | |||||
| Semivowel | j | w | ||||
Molof vowels (8 total), quoted by Foley (2018) from Donohue (n.d.):[3]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | ə | o |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Open | a |
Basic vocabulary of Molof from Rumaropen (2005), quoted inFoley (2018):[5][3]
| gloss | Molof |
|---|---|
| ‘bird’ | au |
| ‘blood’ | mɪt |
| ‘bone’ | antai |
| ‘breast’ | mu |
| ‘ear’ | ou |
| ‘eat’ | nɪ |
| ‘egg’ | li |
| ‘eye’ | lum |
| ‘fire’ | tombe |
| ‘give’ | tui |
| ‘go’ | tuɨ |
| ‘ground’ | aigiman |
| ‘hair’ | era |
| ‘hear’ | ar/arai |
| ‘I’ | məik |
| ‘leg’ | vu |
| ‘louse’ | əlim |
| ‘man’ | lomoa |
| ‘moon’ | ar |
| ‘name’ | ti |
| ‘one’ | kwasekak |
| ‘road, path’ | mɪtnine |
| ‘see’ | lokea |
| ‘sky’ | mejor |
| ‘stone’ | rɨ |
| ‘sun’ | neman |
| ‘tongue’ | aifoma |
| ‘tooth’ | tɨ |
| ‘tree’ | war |
| ‘two’ | atati |
| ‘water’ | yat |
| ‘we’ | ti |
| ‘woman’ | anar |
| ‘you (sg)’ | in |
The following basic vocabulary words are from Voorhoeve (1971, 1975),[6][7] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:[8]
| gloss | Molof |
|---|---|
| head | emi |
| hair | ela |
| ear | ou |
| eye | lom |
| nose | toŋga |
| tooth | te |
| tongue | ai |
| leg | fu |
| louse | lem |
| bird | au |
| egg | le |
| blood | mat |
| bone | antai |
| skin | kant |
| breast | mu |
| tree | woar |
| man | lomo |
| woman | anale |
| sun | nei |
| moon | ar |
| water | jat; yat |
| fire | tombe |
| stone | le |
| road, path | mef |
| name | ti |
| eat | ne |
| one | kwasekak |
| two | ateti |
