| Biksi-Yetfa | |
|---|---|
| Biksi | |
| Native to | Indonesia andPapua New Guinea |
| Region | Jetfa District inPegunungan Bintang Regency |
| Ethnicity | Yetfa,Biksi |
Native speakers | (1,000 cited 1996)[1] |
Pauwasi
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Latin script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | yet |
| Glottolog | yetf1238 |
| ELP | Yetfa-Biksi |
Yetfa andBiksi (Biaksi; Inisine[2]) are dialects of a language spoken in Jetfa District,Pegunungan Bintang Regency,Highland Papua,Indonesia, and across the border inPapua New Guinea. It is a trade language spoken in Western New Guinea up to the PNG border.
According to Hammarström (2008), it is being passed on to children and is not in immediate danger.
Yetfa is not close to other languages. Ross (2005), following Laycock & Z’Graggen (1975), places Biksi in its own branch of theSepik family, but there is little data to base a classification on. The similarities noted by Laycock are sporadic and may simply be loans; Ross based his classification on pronouns, but they are dissimilar enough for the connection to be uncertain. Usher found it to be a SouthernPauwasi language. Foley (2018) classifies it as alanguage isolate.[2]
Foley (2018b: 295-296) notes that first person pronoun and third-person singular masculine pronoun in Yetfa match pronouns found inSepik languages, with some resemblances such asnim ‘louse’ with proto-Sepik *nim ‘louse’, andwal ‘ear’ with proto-Sepik *wan. However, Foley (2018b) considers the evidence linking Yetfa to the Sepik family to be insufficient, thus classifying Yetfa as alanguage isolate until further evidence can be found.[3]
Pronouns from Ross (2005):
| I | nyo | we | nana |
| thou | pwo | you | so |
| s/he | do | they | dwa |
Pronouns from Kim (2005), as quoted in Foley (2018):[2]
| sg | pl | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | na | no |
| 2 | po | so-na-m |
| 3 | do | do-na-ma |
Basic vocabulary of Yetfa from Kim (2006), quoted inFoley (2018):[4][2]
| gloss | Yetfa |
|---|---|
| ‘bird’ | dau |
| ‘blood’ | dueal |
| ‘bone’ | fan |
| ‘breast’ | nom |
| ‘ear’ | wal |
| ‘eat’ | ɲa |
| ‘egg’ | nela |
| ‘eye’ | i |
| ‘fire’ | yao |
| ‘give’ | ni- |
| ‘go’ | la- |
| ‘ground’ | permai |
| ‘hair’ | framai |
| ‘hear’ | wi- |
| ‘I’ | na(wo) |
| ‘leg’ | yop |
| ‘louse’ | nim |
| ‘man’ | nam |
| ‘moon’ | dirmanel |
| ‘name’ | met |
| ‘one’ | kəsa |
| ‘road, path’ | mla |
| ‘see’ | am- |
| ‘sky’ | aklai |
| ‘stone’ | tekop |
| ‘sun’ | imenel |
| ‘tongue’ | mor |
| ‘tooth’ | doa |
| ‘tree’ | yo |
| ‘two’ | daisil |
| ‘water’ | ket |
| ‘we’ | no(wo) |
| ‘woman’ | romo |
| ‘you (sg)’ | po(wo) |
| ‘you (pl)’ | sonam |
The following basic vocabulary words are from Conrad & Dye (1975)[5] and Voorhoeve (1975),[6] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:[7]
| gloss | Yetfa |
|---|---|
| head | fran; ᵽr᷈an |
| hair | fra may; ᵽʌřamai |
| eye | i; ʔiʔ |
| nose | ndor |
| tooth | ɔřa; rwa |
| tongue | moR᷈ |
| louse | ni:m; yim |
| dog | say |
| pig | mbaR᷈; mualə |
| bird | rawi |
| egg | řonǏa |
| blood | ndwal |
| bone | fan |
| skin | tol; toR᷈ |
| tree | yau; yo; yɔ |
| man | nam |
| woman | namiyaA |
| sun | məlel |
| water | kel; kɛr᷈ |
| fire | yaʋ; yau |
| stone | təkoup; tɩkɔᵽ |
| road, path | miaA |
| eat | ŋa; ntɛřᵽI |
| one | kəsa; kɛsa |
| two | ndyesel; tesyɛnsaR᷈ |
There is very little sentence data for Yetfa. Some of the few documented Yetfa sentences are:[2]
do
muni
money
ɲ(a)-awa-te
ni-yo
give-TNS
do muni ɲ(a)-awa-te ni-yo
3SG money 1SG-father-DAT? give-TNS
‘She gave money to my father.’
The Yetfa tense suffix -(y)o is also present inTofanma.[2]