| Waia | |
|---|---|
| Tabo | |
| Region | Western Province,Papua New Guinea |
Native speakers | 3,000 (2002)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | knv |
| Glottolog | tabo1241 |
| ELP | Tabo |
 Map: The Waia language of New Guinea The Waia language (south center) Trans–New Guinea languages Other Papuan languages Austronesian languages Uninhabited | |
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Tabo, also known asWaia (Waya), is aPapuan language ofWestern Province, Papua New Guinea, just north of theFly River delta. The language has also been known asHiwi andHibaradai.[2]
Tabo means ‘word, mouth’ and is the name of the language, whereasWaia is the name of one of the ten villages where Tabo is spoken.[3]
Tabo is not close to other languages. Evans (2018) classifies it as alanguage isolate.[3] Usher (2020) includes it in theTrans-Fly family.[4] Part of the uncertainty is because many of the attested words of Tabo are loans fromGogodala orKiwai, reducing the number of native Tabo words that can be used for comparison and thus making classification difficult.
InGogodala Rural LLG,Western Province, Papua New Guinea, Tabo is spoken in:[5][6]
It is spoken by 3,500 people mainly in the southern partBamu Rural LLG of Western Province.[3]
The phonemic inventory of Tabo is given below.[3]
The following basic vocabulary words are from Reesink (1976) and Wurm (1973), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:[7]
| gloss | Tabo |
|---|---|
| head | wato |
| hair | hinibó; hinibɔ |
| ear | galo |
| eye | ba ͥdi; baidi |
| nose | dopo; dɔ:pɔ |
| tooth | lalo; lolo |
| tongue | mɛlpila; merapira |
| leg | nato |
| louse | tamani |
| dog | gaha |
| bird | hola; hola: |
| egg | kikipo |
| blood | hawi;haᵘwi |
| bone | goha; goha: |
| skin | tama |
| breast | nono |
| tree | ke'ha; kɛha |
| man | dubu; tubu |
| woman | kamena |
| sun | kadepa; kadɛpa |
| moon | manome; manomi |
| water | bea |
| fire | koe; kue: |
| stone | -nadi; naki |
| road, path | gabo |
| name | mahiro; mahiřo |
| eat | hɛna; nɛ:na |
| one | kapia |
| two | nete'ewa |