| Yoke | |
|---|---|
| Pauwi | |
| Native to | Indonesia |
| Region | Yoke village, Mamberamo Hilir District,Mamberamo Raya Regency,Papua |
Native speakers | (200 cited 1998)[1] |
Lower Mamberamo
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | yki |
| Glottolog | yoke1239 |
| ELP | Yoke |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Yoke is a poorly documented language spoken by about 200 people in the north ofPapua,Indonesia. The name is also spelledYoki, Yauke, and it is also known as Bitovondo. It was spoken in a single village in the interior until the government relocated a third of the population to a new village, Mantarbori, on the coast. In the late 19th century, a word list of "Pauwi" was collected by Robidé van der Aa atLake Rombebai, where the Yoke say they migrated from; this is transparently Yoke, apart from some words which do not appear in the modern language but are found in related Warembori.[2]
About one third of the vocabulary of Yoke is cognate withWarembori, a language which has either been strongly influenced byAustronesian languages, or is an Austronesian language strongly influenced byPapuan languages. The two languages are grammatically very similar, with shared morphological irregularities, demonstrating a genealogical relationship. However, Yoke does not share the Austronesian features of Warembori, and it is unclear how this relates to Ross's 2005 classification, based on pronouns, of Warembori as an Austronesian language.
On the surface, at least, Yoke has the following sounds:
| Labial | Coronal | Dorsal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | |
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k |
| voiced | b | d | ɡ | |
| Fricative | β | s | ɣ | |
| Approximant | w | ɾ | j | |
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
Unusually for a Papuan language, but like Warembori, Yoke has prepositions and asubject–verb–object (SVO) constituent order. Verbs have subject prefixes and may have one or more object suffixes. The verbal affixes are:
| Subject | Object | |
|---|---|---|
| 1sg | e- | -e |
| 2sg | a- | -a |
| 3sg | i-, ja-, ∅- | -i |
| 1pl | ki- | -oɣo |
| 2pl | mi-, im- | -amo |
| 3pl | si- | -esi |
The independent pronouns are the first subject marker listed in the table prefixed to-βu. The plural forms may derive from Austronesian; seeWarembori for details.
Like manyPapuan languages of northern New Guinea, Yoke hassuppletive singular/plural forms for nouns.[3]
Yoke ispolysynthetic, withnoun incorporation in its verbs. For example,
eβu
I
e-
ɾaβ-
chop.down-
upia
sago.tree
-βi
-for
-ɾ
-a
-you
-na
-with
-kumamba
-axe
-o
-IND
eβu e- ɾaβ- upia -βi -ɾ -a -na -kumamba -o
I 1SG- chop.down- sago.tree -for -THEME -you -with -axe -IND
'I have already chopped down a sago tree for you with an axe.'
(The purpose of the 'thematic' consonant is unclear, but it appears to divide verbs into different classes.)