Maybrat
Maybrat–Karon
Region	Tambrauw andMaybrat Regency,Southwest Papua
Ethnicity	Maybrat
Native speakers	(25,000 cited 1987)[1]
Language family	?Language isolate, or ?Bird's Head Maybrat
Dialects	Mayhapeh Maymaru Mayasmaun Maymare Mayte Karon Dori (Miyah)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: ayz – Mai Brat kgw – Karon Dori
Glottolog	maib1239
Maybrat Show map of Western New Guinea Maybrat Show map of Indonesia
Coordinates:1°22′S132°35′E / 1.37°S 132.59°E /-1.37; 132.59

Maybrat is aPapuan language spoken in the central parts of theBird's Head Peninsula in the Indonesian province ofSouthwest Papua.

Maybrat is also known asAyamaru, after the name of its principal dialect, while the divergentKaron Dori dialect has sometimes been counted as a separate language. Maybrat has not been demonstrated to be related to any other language, and so is often considered alanguage isolate. Nevertheless, in its grammatical structure, it has a number of features that are shared with the neighbouring languages.

Maybrat is characterised by a relatively small consonant inventory and an avoidance of most types ofconsonant clusters. There are twogenders: masculine and unmarked. Verbs andinalienably possessed nouns alike takeperson prefixes. There is an elaborate system ofdemonstratives (words like "this" or "that"), with encoding for distance from the speaker, specificity, and syntactic function. In the clause, there is a fairly rigidsubject–verb–object word order, and within noun phrases modifiers follow the head noun. Verb sequences, includingserial verbs are very common, and verbs are used for a number of functions which in languages like English are served by adjectives or prepositions.

With around 25,000 speakers (as of 1987),^[1] Maybrat is among the most populous languages of Indonesian Papua.^[2] Its speakers are theMaybrat people, who mainly practice hunting, fishing, andswidden agriculture.^[3] They have traditionally lived in scattered homesteads, with the organisation into villages (kampongs) initiated by the efforts of the Dutch administration between the 1930s and the 1950s.^[4] These villages, like the establishment of the settlement ofAyawasi in 1953, brought together scattered local groups where each family had spoken a slightly different dialect, resulting in a "melting pot" where the small dialectal differences are less pronounced in the speech of the younger generations.^[5]

Maybrat is spoken in a large area in the central parts of the Bird's Head Peninsula, with a large portion of its speakers concentrated around theAyamaru Lakes, although many are also found in urban areas of Indonesian Papua.^[6] Maybrat is surrounded by a number of languages; to the north are two other isolates:Abun andMpur; to the east areMeyah andMoskona, both members of theEast Bird's Head language family; theSouth Bird's Head languagesArandai,Kaburi,Kais, andKonda are spoken to the south, and to the west areTehit andMoraid, both of theWest Bird's Head family.^[7]

TheMalay language served as thelanguage of wider communication in this area during the Dutch administration, while more recently the relatedIndonesian language has taken up this role.^[8] Most Maybrat speakers in Ayawasi, for example, are fully bilingual in Indonesian, with the use of Indonesian loanwords andcode-switching between the two languages fairly common.^[9]

The word "Maybrat" is a compound ofmai 'sound, language',^[10] and according to one explanation, its meaning is "the language Brat", where "Brat" is the name of a hill near the village of Semetu in the Ayamaru region.^[11]

Maybrat is often considered to be a language isolate, as a relationship to any other language has not yet been established. There have been attempts to subsume it under putative families like the "Toror languages" (includingAbun and theWest Bird's Head languages), or the broaderWest Papuan family. Even if not demonstrably related to any other language and sharing only a small percentage of its vocabulary with its neighbours, Maybrat nevertheless has a great deal in its grammatical structure that resembles other languages of the Bird's Head.^[12]

There have been various classifications and listings of the dialects of Maybrat.^[a] The local tradition of the speakers recognises the following six dialects (the districts and villages where each is spoken are given in brackets):^[13]

• Mayhapeh (Ayawasi,Kokas,Mosun,Konya,Kumurkek)
• Mayasmaun (Ayata,Kamat,Aisa)
• Karon Dori or Miyah (Miyah,Senopi,Fef, Syujak).^[14]
• Maymare (Suswa,Sire)
• Maymaru (Ayamaru): in Ayamaru District and Ayamaru Timur District^[14]
• Mayte (Aytinyo,Fuoh): in Aytinyo District^[14]

The most divergent dialect, Karon Dori, is sometimes considered a distinct language. The differences between Maymaru and Mayhapeh on the other hand are very small, but the two are nevertheless regarded by their speakers as distinct dialects. This is largely because the Maymaru speak significantly faster, so much so that the Mayhapeh often have difficulties understanding them.^[15] The dialect whose phonology and grammar are described in the following sections is Mayhapeh, as analysed by Dol in her2007 grammar. The two papers by Brown (1990,1991) are on noun phrases and phonology and they are based on the Maymaru dialect as spoken in the village ofKambuaya.

Irires is also known as Karon Dori, Meon, or Maiyach. Some exonyms include:^[16]

• Karon name:Meon ‘people who speak language speedly’
• Mpur name:Bakatan ‘people who produce and wear bracelets’
• Meyah name:Meyah mewi ‘language root’

Maybrat has five vowelphonemes and a small consonant inventory consisting of between nine and eleven consonant phonemes, depending on the analysis. Closed syllables are not uncommon, but most types of consonant clusters are broken up with the insertion of a schwa vowel. The placement of stress is not predictable.

The following table presents the five Maybrat vowels along with theirallophones as documented in the Mayhapeh dialect:^[17]

A non-phonemicschwa vowel/ə/ is used, mostly to break up consonant clusters (seebelow). A schwa is also optionally inserted before the initial consonant in a small number of short words:[ti] ~[əˈti] 'night'.^[18] Vowels are phonetically lengthened in stressed one-syllable words.^[19] A vowel at the start of a word is optionally preceded, and a vowel at the end of a word is optionally followed, by a non-phonemicglottal stop[ʔ], typically when the word is uttered in isolation:[ɔm] ~[ʔom] 'rain',[ˈmata] ~[ˈmataʔ] 'they drink'.^[20]

Not all of these allophones have been documented in the Maymaru dialect. However, it does have the following allophone rules not described for the Mayhapeh dialect: word-final /o/ is pronounced as [ɨ] after /i/, while unstressed word-final /a/ is realised as [ə].^[21]

In the Mayhapeh dialect, the bilabial stop/p/ does not occur at the end of the word. It has twoallophones – voiceless[p] and voiced[b] – which are infree variation in all positions: /tapam/ 'land' →[ˈtapɑm]~[ˈtabɑm]; the voiceless allophone is more common, even between vowels. The velar stop/k/ is voiceless, but it has an optional voiced allophone[ɡ] between vowels and an optionalunreleased allophone[k̚] at the end of the word. The alveolar stop/t/ is always voiceless, and in word-final position[t] is in free variation with theaspirated[tʰ] and the unreleased[t̚]: /poiit/ 'food' →['pɔiːt]~[ˈpɔiːtʰ][ˈpɔiːt̚]. The labial fricative /f/ has two allophones in free variation: the[f] and the[ɸ]. Thevelar fricative /x/, which in the practical orthography is written ash, can be either voiceless[x] or voiced[ɣ]: /xren/ 'they sit' →[xəˈrɛn]~[ɣəˈrɛn]. Therhotic consonant is always analveolar trill[r] at the start of the word, while in other positions it is in free variation with thealveolar tap[ɾ].^[22]

Voiced allophones are generally more common in the other dialects.^[23] For example, in the Maymaru dialect, spoken in the area of Ayamaru, the bilabial stop is always voiced[b], while the alveolar stop/t/ becomes voiced[d] after/n/. The velar stop/k/ becomes voiced/g/ either before/i/ or after/n/.^[24]

The semivowels/j/ and/w/ are treated as distinct consonantal phonemes in Dol's study of the Mayhapeh dialect of Ayawasi, but Brown's analysis of the Maymaru dialect they are instead analysed as allophones of the vowels /i/ and /u/ respectively.^[25] In the remainder of this article, the semivowel /j/ is represented with⟨y⟩, following the practical orthography.

At the phonemic level,consonant clusters do occur, either at the start or in the middle of the word, but they are invariably broken up by the insertion of theepenthetic vowel schwa[ə]. Thus, /tre/ 'bracelet' is pronounced[təˈre], /twok/ →[təˈwɔk] 'they enter', /mti/ →[məˈti] 'evening'.^[b] This also happens when the consonant cluster is in the middle of the word between vowels (/mfokfok/ →[məˌfɔkəˈfɔk] 'they roll'), except if the first consonant of the cluster is a nasal: /nimpon/ →[ˈnimpɔn] 'watermelon'.^[26] The epenthetic schwa can assimilate in quality to the following vowel: /mtie/ →[mɪˈtije].^[27] Those Maybrat speakers who are also fluent in Indonesian, can and do pronounce clusters of a consonant + r (which are also found in Indonesian), for example /pron/ 'bamboo' →[prɔn] (in contrast to[pəˈrɔn], as pronounced by people who speak only Maybrat).^[28]

The placement ofstress is not predictable, although it most often falls on the first syllable (schwa vowels getting skipped: /tfo/ →[təˈfo]).^[29] Stress is phonemic at least in the Maymaru dialect. In his description of this dialect, Brown adduces several minimal pairs of words that differ solely in the placement of stress:/ˈana/ 'they' (with the stress falling on the first syllable) vs./aˈna/ 'fence' (stress falling on the second syllable),/moˈo/ 'she itches' vs./ˈmoo/ 'she takes'.^[30] In her study of the Mayhapeh dialect of Ayawasi, Dol notes that such pairs, though perceived by the native speakers as distinct, are acoustically indistinguishable, thus "they" and "fence" are both/ˈana/.^[31] Her conclusion, which has received some criticism,^[32] is that stress is only weakly phonemic.^[33]

At the end of a sentence, many older speakers blow a puff of air through their nose, which appears to be a common phenomenon in the languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula.^[34]

Maybrat has a set of independentpersonal pronouns and the correspondingperson prefixes that are used with verbs and some nouns:

The Maymaru dialectdistinguishes between inclusive 'we' (meaning 'I + you') and exclusive 'we' ('I + he/she'). The inclusive form isanu (with corresponding person prefixb-) and the exclusive one isamu (with prefixn-). It also has somewhat different pronouns for the first and second person singular:tyo^[c] 'I', andnyo 'you (singular)'.^[36]

The person prefixes are obligatory for verbs and forinalienably possessed nouns (seebelow for these possession constructions). When added to a verb, the prefix indexes thesubject (y-amo 'He goes'), and when added to an inalienably possessed noun, it indexes the possessor (y-ana 'his head'). If the verb or noun begins with the vowela- then this vowel is dropped before prefixes for the first and second person plural.^[d] The following table lists the prefixes of the Mayhapeh dialect along with an example paradigm:^[37]

There are words, nouns or verbs, that do not take person prefixes. This is largely determined phonologically: the prefix is not allowed if its addition would result in a word of three or more syllables. There are also five verbs that are exceptions: they do not allow person prefixes even though they are otherwise phonologically eligible.^[38][e]

Maybrat has an elaborate system ofdemonstratives (these are words like "this", "that", or "there").^[39] They are morphologically complex and consist of a prefix, a demonstrative base, and a suffix. The four demonstrative bases are differentiated based on distance from the speaker:-f- is for objects that are within physical reach of the speaker,-t- indicates objects a little further away but still near,-n- refers to objects that are far away, while-au does not specify a distance and so is used when the distance from the speaker is irrelevant. The demonstrative base is followed by a suffix specifying gender:-o is unmarked for gender, and-i,-ait or-e are for the masculine. Which of the three masculine suffixes to choose depends on the base:-ait is only used after-t,-e is used with-n-, while-i usually combines with-f-. Gender is relevant only with certain prefixes (re- andme-/-fi- +-t-); otherwise, the unmarked suffix-o is used. Examples of the masculine and the unmarked forms:^[40]

The demonstratives in the examples above have the prefixre-, which is used when the specific location of the object is known. If the exact location of the object is not known, then another prefixwe- is employed:[41]

Another prefix iste-, which refers to area, and so demonstratives with this prefix correspond to English words like "here" or "there", unlike ones withre- andwe-, which can usually be translated asthis orthat:[42]

All three prefixes discussed above –re-,we- andte- – mark their demonstratives for attributive use, that is, such demonstratives typically occur within a noun phrase and modify the head noun. Another set of prefixes is used foradverbial demonstratives, ones that can be used as adverbs to modify a clause. The following two examples contrast attributive and adverbial demonstratives:^[43]

Another prefix isme-. It expresses apresentative: it introduces a new referent, which will normally be the topic of what follows next. Examples are:^[44]

Two further prefixes arefi- 'similar.to', andti- 'side':

The specific demonstratives mentioned earlier,refo,reto, androno, can also be used without there- prefix – asfo,to andno – without a significant change of meaning.^[45] Two of these –fo andto – have an additional function. They can serve asanaphoric pronouns, referring to entities mentioned earlier in the text.^[46][f]

Many of the demonstrative prefixes can also combine with the interrogative base-yo/-ye, resulting in the question wordsfi-ye 'how?',ro-yo 'which one?' and three more that translates into English as 'where?':to-yo,wo-yo andmi-yo. The difference between the three parallels the difference between the corresponding demonstratives.Mi-yo is used adverbially, whilewo-yo andto-yo are normally used to question the locational object of verbs, with the distinguishing feature between these two being the degree of specificity:^[47]

Other question words areawiya 'who?',r-awiya 'whose?',p-awiya 'what?',tiya 'how much/many?' andtitiya 'when?'.

The younger people, noted Philomena Dol in the 1990s, normally count in Indonesian. Maybrat's traditional counting system described in the rest of this section is nowadays mostly confined to the older generation.^[48] It employsbase-5 numerals, in common with other non-Austronesian languages of the area.^[49]Counting usually starts at the little finger of either hand,^[g] and proceeds along the fingers of this hand using the dedicated number words:sait (for masculine) andsau (non-masculine) for 'one',ewok (oreok) meaning 'two',tuf 'three',tiet 'four', andmat 'five'. The numbers from six to nine are counted on the other hand, again starting from the little finger, using the complex numeralskrem sau (literally 'one finger') for 'six',krem ewok (lit. 'two fingers') for 'seven', etc. 'Ten' is the wordstatem, which is derived fromt-atem 'my hand'. Counting then proceeds with the little toe on one of the feet, where 'eleven' isoo krem sau (lit. 'foot toe one'), 'twelve' isoo krem ewok (lit. 'foot toe two'), etc. until 'fifteen'oo sau muf (lit. 'one full foot'). After that, counting moves to the big toe of the other foot, with 'sixteen' beingoo sau krem sau (lit. 'one foot, one toe'). Counting ends at the little toe, with the word for 'twenty'rae sait yhai literally meaning 'one man is gone'. Multiples of twenty then count the number of 'men gone', thus 'forty' israe ewok mhai, lit. 'two men are gone'.^[50]

Maybrat nouns referring to male humans have a masculinegender. This is not expressed on the noun but shows up in the choice of a personal prefix on wordsagreeing with this noun. The masculine prefixy- contrasts withm-, which is used for female humans, inanimate nouns, and in the plural (regardless of gender).^[51] This makes the feminine theunmarked form, which is in common with most of the Papuan languages that make a gender distinction in their grammar and it is in contrast to such languages in the rest of the world.^[52] Nouns do not take number marking.^[53]

Nouns can be derived from verbs using the prefixpo- (which can be a standalone word meaning "thing"):-iit 'eat' ->poiit 'food',hren 'sit' ->pohren 'chair',-kah 'burn' ->pokah 'garden',kom 'write' ->pokom 'pen'. If forming anagent noun, the verb will then also take the person prefixm-3U (provided its phonological form allows it):afit 'bite' ->pomafit 'mosquito' (lit. 'thing that bites'),haf 'pregnant' ->pomhaf 'pumpkin' (lit. 'thing that is pregnant').[54]

Compound nouns can be formed of either noun + noun, or noun + verb. In both cases, the second element modifies the first one, for examplefane rapuoh, a compound offane 'pig' andrapuoh 'forest', meanswild pig, which is a kind of pig. A compound noun is phonologically a single word, but each of the two elements retains its stress (unless this would result in two consecutive stressed syllables, in which case the stress of the first element is moved to the left), with the stress on the second element becoming the main stress of the compound.^[55]

In common with most languages of the peninsula,^[56] Maybrat expresses possession differently depending on whether it isalienable or inalienable. Compare the two constructions:^[57]

Inalienably possessed nouns are the nouns for body parts (like "head", "root" etc.),kinship terms ("father", "wife" etc.), andspatial nouns (m-aom 'outside',m-asuf 'middle', etc.). Such nounsobligatorily take a pronominal prefix, which agrees in person with the possessor; if the possessor is explicitly stated, then it precedes the possessed noun. For alienable nouns, on the other hand, the possessor follows the possessed noun, which does not feature a pronominal prefix but instead takes the possessive markerro.^[58] An inalienably possessed construction can itself be embedded in another possessed construction:

The order of constituents in anoun phrase generally follows the pattern:

head noun + adjectival verb + numeral or quantifying verb + demonstrative

The so-called 'adjectival verbs' (seebelow) are verbs that serve the function of what in English would have been an adjective. They take a person prefix that agrees with the head noun.^[59]

A numeral can be preceded by aclassifier, whose use is optional and does not affect the meaning of the noun phrase. Classifiers agree in person with the head noun.

There are four classifiers:-ana 'head' (a general classifier that is most commonly used for humans and animates),-akan 'seed/stone' (for seeds and fruit),m-ake 'fruit' (for fruit), and-ata 'leaf' (for money/banknotes). A similar use is made of the nounyu 'bag' when giving the quantity of uncountables:

Quantifying verbs include verbs likewaro 'little' and-siar 'many'. There are several verbs that correspond to the English "everyone/everything", these include:-kak 'absolutely everything/everyone',pria(n) 'everyone/everything',-tut 'everyone/everything' (for small groups), andwisau 'everyone/everything' (for large groups).^[60]

Last in the noun phrase comes the demonstrative:

Verbs in Maybrat obligatorily take person prefixes agreeing with the subject (seeabove for more details).

Verbs can be eitherintransitive (taking a single argument, a subject) or transitive (taking two arguments: a subject and an object). A subclass of intransitive verbs carry out functions for which languages like English useadjectives. Such 'adjectival' verbs can function both as predicates ("The bookis red") and as attributes ("thered book"):^[61]

Aclause consists of a predicate (typically a verb) and its arguments (typically expressed by noun phrases), with optional adverbial modifiers. In Maybrat, the order of the constituents in a clause is rigid; this is common in the languages of the Bird's Head, whether Papuan or Austronesian, but unusual for the Papuan languages broader afield.^[62]

Clauses show a singleintonation contour, which involves a rise inpitch on the stressed syllable of the last vowel in the clause, and a subsequent sharp drop.^[63]

Because verbs take obligatory person prefixes, there is no need for asubject to be explicitly given if it is readily identifiable from the context. Thus, sentences consisting solely of a verb (with a person prefix) are acceptable:

If expressed, the subject precedes the verb, while anobject follows the verb. Thus, Maybrat has a rigidSVO word order.

The object can also be omitted if it can easily be inferred from the context:

An object can be given moreprominence as a topic bymoving it to the start of the clause. The object then has an intonation contour of its own and it is separated from the rest of the clause by a pause:

Adverbials for time are placed before the verb, and if there is a subject they can either precede or follow it:

All other types of adverbials (for manner, location, etc.) follow the verb:

In common with other languages of the region,^[64] Maybrat expresses negation by a clause-final particle. This particle isfe, whose typical use is given in the first example below. Butfe can also function as a verb and take a person prefix, as in the second example. These two uses offe can have different meanings, but the distinction between the two is not consistently maintained.

Questions have the sameintonation pattern as other sentence types; this is in contrast to many other languages, like English, where questions typically have a high or rising pitch. Yes/No questions are formed by the addition ofa at the end of the clause:^[65]

Content questions feature a question word replacing whatever part of the clause information is being sought for:

A notable feature of Maybrat is the extensive use that it makes of sequences of verbs without any overt marking of their relation. Such verb sequences are typified in a number of different constructions, which might be superficially similar, but show upon closer inspection to be syntactically distinct. For example, there might be differences in the readiness with which the verbs can take distinct intonation contours or allow to be separated by pauses, the availability of their objects for extraction into relative clauses, or the possibility for an interrogative particle to take scope over only one of the two verbs.^[66] The various types of verb sequences described in the rest of this section can be contrasted tocoordinated constructions in which each verb forms a separate clause:

A group of constructions feature acomplement clause: the second verb (and its clause) functions as the object of the first verb. The first verb can be a perception verb, a mental activity verb or a verb of saying:

A construction that bears certain resemblance to theserial verb constructions known in other languages^[67] involves the four so-called prepositional verbs. These are-ae 'at',-kit 'towards',-pat 'from', and-kah 'with/to/for':

There is a cline between typical verbs on the one hand and typical prepositions on the other. The four "prepositional verbs" of Maybrat each fall on different points along this cline and possess different combinations of verbal or prepositional characteristics. One typically verbal characteristic is the ability to serve as the main verb of a clause:-ae 'at' alone among these four can function as the main verb of a clause. Another verbal characteristic is the ability to show agreement with the subject of the clause. In this respect, the two verbs-kit 'towards' and-pat 'from' are more verbal in that they always take person prefixes agreeing with the subject; this contrasts both with-kah 'with/to/for', which always takes only the unmarked third-person prefixm- regardless of the subject, and with-ae, which may follow either pattern. These four verbs also differ in the extent to which their objects can be extracted into relative clauses.^[69]

Similar to serial verb constructions is also the construction with a second verb of motion (like-amo 'go') whose subject is the same as the object of the first verb:

A similar construction involving the verbs-o 'take' and-e 'give' is available to express the meaning of 'giving somethingto someone'; such a construction is necessary because verbs in Maybrat can only take two arguments (a subject and an object) and so-e 'give' on its own cannot take arguments for both the object given and the person who received it:

Apart from the more or less tightly integrated verb sequences from the previous section, there also exist a number of ways of combining full clauses into complex sentences. For example, a number ofconjunctions can be used for joining clauses referring to events in a sequence:mati,na,mnan, oro:

Disjunction ('either, or') can be expressed with the negatorfe. Subordinate clauses for purpose or cause are introduced withre 'in order to',mi 'so that', orke 'because':

Arelative clause is introduced by the relativiserro: this is the same particle as the one used in possessive constructions (seeabove), and it may be related to the demonstrativere-.^[70]

Similar constructions are available for several kinds of subordinate adverbial clauses. Temporal adverbial clauses are introduced byum ro (lit. 'the moment when') orkine wo (lit. 'the time when') – the difference between these two relativisers parallels the difference between the related demonstrative prefixesre- (specific, can be pinpointed) andwe- (non-specific).^[71]

Adverbial clauses for manner are introduced withfi-re, wherefi- is the demonstrative prefix meaning "similar to". The marker for locative adverbial clauses can be one ofwo,wo-yo orwo-re, without an apparent difference in meaning.^[72] An example of a locative clause:

A style figure common in narratives istail-head linkage, where the last predicate of one sentence is repeated at the start of the next one:

• Brown, William U. (1990)."Mai Brat nominal phrases"(PDF). In Purwo, Bambang Kaswanti (ed.).Miscellaneous studies of Indonesian and other languages in Indonesia, part X. NUSA : Linguistic Studies of Indonesian and Other Languages in Indonesia. Vol. 32. Jakarta: Universitas Katolik Indonesia Atma Jaya. pp. 43–61.
• Brown, William U. (1991)."A quantitative phonology of Mai Brat"(PDF). In Dutton, Tom (ed.).Papes in Papuan linguistics no. 1. Dept. of Linguistics, Australian National University. pp. 1–27.hdl:1885/145736.ISBN 0-85883-393-X.
• Dol, Philomena Hedwig (1996)."Sequences of verbs in Maybrat"(PDF).NUSA - Linguistic Studies of Indonesian and Other Languages in Indonesia.40.
• Dol, Philomena Hedwig (1998). "Form and function of demonstratives in Maybrat".Perspectives on the Bird's Head of Irian Jaya, Indonesia : proceedings of a conference Leiden, 13 - 17 October 1997. Jelle Miedema et al. (eds.). Amsterdam: Rodopi. pp. 535–553.ISBN 978-90-420-0644-7.
• Dol, Philomena Hedwig (2007).A grammar of Maybrat : A language of the Bird's Head Peninsula, Papua province, Indonesia. Pacific Linguistics. Canberra: Australian National University.hdl:1885/146742.ISBN 978-0-85883-573-3.
• Donohue, Mark (2011). "A grammar of Maybrat : A language of the Bird's Head Peninsula, Papua Province, Indonesia (review)".Oceanic Linguistics.50 (1):279–283.doi:10.1353/ol.2011.0011.ISSN 1527-9421.S2CID 144586710.
• Elmberg, John-Erik (1955). "Field notes on the Mejbrat people in the Ajamaru District of the Bird's Head (Vogelkop), Western New Guinea".Ethnos.20 (1):1–102.doi:10.1080/00141844.1955.9980787.ISSN 0014-1844.
• Foley, William A. (2017). "The morphosyntactic typology of Papuan languages".The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area : A Comprehensive Guide. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.ISBN 978-3-11-029525-2.
• Gratton, Nancy E. (1991)."Mejbrat". In Hays, Terence E. (ed.).Encyclopedia of world cultures. Vol. II : Oceania. New York: G.K. Hall. pp. 195–97.ISBN 0816118094.
• Hays, Terence (2003)."Mai Brat"(PDF).
• Holton, Gary; Klamer, Marian (2017). "The Papuan languages of East Nusantara and the Bird's Head".The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area : A Comprehensive Guide. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.ISBN 978-3-11-029525-2.
• Reesink, Ger (2005). "West Papuan languages : Roots and development". InAndrew Pawley; Robert Attenborough; Robin Hide; Jack Golson (eds.).Papuan pasts : Cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 185–218.ISBN 0858835622.OCLC 67292782.

• Dol, Philomena (2000)."Maybrat"(PDF).NUSA - Linguistic Studies of Indonesian and Other Languages in Indonesia.47. Contains a Maybrat story along with interlinear glosses and a translation.

• An open access collection of Mai Brat language (CVL1) atParadisec (requires registration)
• A wordlist at the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database (the more fragmentary list atTransNewGuinea.org includes items from the Karon Dori dialect)

• Language isolates of New Guinea
• West and Central Bird's Head languages
• Languages of Western New Guinea
• Subject–verb–object languages
• Isolating languages

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