TBR Fl..4lt1INGO B.4Y Dl.4l.RCT OF TBR .4SM.4T l..4NGV.4GR VERHANDELINGEN VAN HET KONINKLIJ K INSTITUUT VOOR TAAL·, LAND· EN VOLKENKUNDE DEEL 46 C. L. VOORHOEVE THE FLAMINGO BAY DIALECT OF THE ASMAT LANGUAGE 'S-GRAV E N H AG E - MAR TIN U SNIJ HO FF - 1965 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS N ow that this hook is finished the time has come for me to express my indebtedness to those who have made it possible. My first acknowledgement is to the Stichting Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek van de Tropen (WOTRO), formerly the Stichting Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Nieuw-Guinea (WONG), The Hague, for making available to me the money to enable me to carry out fieldwork in linguistics for a period of two years in West N ew Guinea and, in addition, for making it possible for me to devote myself exclusively on my return to working on the material I had assembied. I owe a particular debt to the Treasurer of the Stichting, Dr J. H. Westermann for his continued and stimulating interest in the progress of the work. I am grateful to the Board of Directors of the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, The Hague, for their kindness in publishing this thesis as one of the Verhandelingen of the Instituut. My thanks are due to Dr J. C. Anceaux and Mr B. J. Hoff for their suggestions made during the preparation of the baok, suggestions upon which I place great value. The translator, Miss Jeune Scott-KembalI, has been painstaking in the difficult task of translating this work and her critical observations have frequently led to a clearer formulation of the facts. Her efforts des erve great praise. I t is not possible to name every person who was so helpful to my wife and me during our stay in New Guinea and who made our sojourn one of great pleasure, but they are remembered with gratitude. I wiII, however, mention those who were directly concerned with my work. Foremost among them were Dr A. A. Gerbrands and Mr D. B. Eyde who were carrying out anthropological fieldwork in the Ásmat country. Their friendship and their continued interest was a stimulus to my own work and their knowledge of Ásmat culture enabled me to catch a glimpse of the inner working of this remarkable society. Here the name of Pater G. Zegwaard, M.S.C. at Merauke must not pass without comment. By placing his own field notes at the disposal of the fieldworkers in the Ásmat country, he made accessible VI THE ASMAT LANGUAGE to them an inexhaustible source of valuable data on the Asmat people. I am also grateful for the support and co-operation I was fortunate enough to receive from the Roman Catholic and Protestant Missions at Agats, in particular from Father Pitka, with whose help I obtained my informants and Mr W. Hekman who was kind enough, after I had left the Asmat country, to send me some additional data that I needed. That I can recall with so much pleasure our stay in the Asmat country is not least due to the friendship and hospitality of Mr J. W. Kroon [District Offieer], Mr J. Watrin [Chief of Police], and Dr V. F. P. M. van Ame1svoort, M.D. Our thoughts frequently go out to the friends in SurU and J epém whose hospitality we so often enjoyed and who many times acted as my informants : in Suru, there was \Varsékomen, the great warrior; the astute Simni; his brother Pókakat and his wife Misinmaj who adopted my wife as their daughter; the old Oscowák, and Asépar, the mother of my informant Natinák. In Jepém there was Erémnet, my 'father', and the old Poe, my wife's 'mother' ; Manéfakat the seer; our neighhours, the story-teller Makór, the vain Joperák and the good-natured, if testy, Jojpir and last but not least the youths Wominén and Atmer. All of them made the time my wife and me spent among them unforgettable. In particular, however, is this book the hook of my adopted sons and informants Mifekpic and N atinák. With endless forbearance and with great enthousiasm these youths, with sueh simple Malay as they knew, endeavoured to teach me something of their difficult language, and it is especially due to them that the year and a half of productive research has resulted in this book. Leiden, October 1965 C. L. VOORHOEVE CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. CONTENTS page V VII PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. The Ásmat language: area, adjacent languages, dialects .. 1 2. The terrain, the people, the concept of their world 2 3. Establishment of Government and the Missions ; first linguistic research. 3 4. Present research, choice of dialect. 4 5. The Flamingo Bay dialect; area, history . 5 6. Work with informants. 6 7. Tape recording 8 8. Research in Ágats and J epém 8 PART 11: PHONOLOGY I. THE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM • 9-11. Introduction 12-19. The vowel phonemes 20---31. The consonant phonemes . 10 10 12 16 11. SPECIAL PHONOLOGICAL PHENOMENA • 20 32. Introduction 20 33. The occurrence of an allophone in a ~sition in which it occurs not otherwise .. 21 34--37. Particular phoneme modifications. .. 21 38. Sounds which stand completely by themse1ves 23 111. THE ACCENT. • • • • • • • • • • • • 39. Introduction 40. The general principle of accentuation 41--44. Words in isolation : 41. Monomorphematic words. 42--44. Polymorphematic words 45-47. Words in context 23 23 25 25 27 30 VIII THE ASMAT LANGUAGE IV. THE DISTRIBUTION OF PHONEMES IN THE WORD • 48. Single vowels and consonants 49-50. Vowel sequences. 51-52. Consonant sequences V. WORD-VARIANTS.. 53. Types of variants 54-61. Free variants . PART lIl: WORD-CLASSES 1. INTRODUCTION 62. Morphological processes Il. THE VERB 63. Introduction 64-70. Genera! survey of the structure of verba! forms: 64. Core and periphera! part . 65---69. The morphological structure of the core . 70. The morphological structure of the peripheral part 71-103. Core-morphology : 71--80. Prefixed formatives 81-94. Suffixed formatives . 95. Sequences of formatives 96-99. Root-allomorphs 100-103. Lists of unidentified morphemes and of residual forms 104--180. W ord-morphology : 104--106. Introduction 107. The core category 108. The -ic category . 109. The -a category . 110-111. The m-/mV- category . 112. The m-/mV- -áji/éji category . 113. The -ájmos category 114. The -ájpuruw category 115-118. The imperative category 119-122. The hortative category 123-124. Subdivision into subject- and object-categories . /Jage 31 31 32 33 38 38 38 41 41 41 41 42 43 46 47 52 57 58 62 67 72 73 74 74 76 76 77 78 81 84 125-131. 132-134. 135-140. 141-143. 144-151. 152-154. 155-161. 162-164. 165-167. 168-170. 171-173. 174-175. 176-178. 179-180. 181. 182. 183. CONTENTS The conditional category The optative category . The habitual category . The habitual forms of the mediate past . The progressive forms The progressive forms of the mediate past . The ultimate past category The mediate past category The anterioritive forms The perfective forms The past tense category formative of cores with durative The -mer forms. The unproductive category of the positional verbs The prefixes em- and p-jpV- Syntactical valenee of the verb. Summary of the forms of the verbs e Ij and ji 'to do', which were found linked to a form of the -a category Summary of the forms of the verb em 'to do, to make', which were found linked to the m-jmV- form of the verb. lIl. SUBSTANTIVES • • IX page 85 90 92 97 99 104 106 111 114 115 117 119 121 123 125 125 127 128 184. Definition 128 185-187. Primary derivatives . 128 188. Secondary derivatives 130 189. Words with which derivatives are formed only with -nakáp, or only with -nakás 131 190. A non-productive plural category 132 191. Cases of transposition 132 192-193. Syntactical valenee 133 IV. PROPER NAM ES • 135 194. Grouping 135 195-196. Names of persons and names of riv ers 135 197. Names of villages and names of ceremonial houses 136 198. Syntactical valenee 136 x V. THE ASMAT LANGUAGE AD]ECTIVES • • • • • • • • 199. Characteristics 200-203. Morphological valence . 204. Cases of transposition 205. Syntactical valence. page 137 137 138 140 140 VI. DEICTIC WORDS. • • 142 142 206. 207-231. 207-219. 220---227. 228--231. 232-234. 232. 233. 234. Introduction The non-interrogative pronouns: The personal possessive class The demonstrative class The directional class Interrogative pronouns : Characteristics Interrogatives occurring in combination with am Interrogatives without am VII. INTER]ECTIONS • • • • 143 152 156 157 158 160 161 235. Characteristics 161 236. Exclamations 161 237. Onomatopoeic interjections and words of command to animals . 162 VIII. NEGATIONS AND POSTPOSITIONS • 164 238. Introduction 164 239-244. Negations 165 245-261. Postpositions: 245-247. Emphasizing words. 168 248--251. Conjunctions 171 252-254. Question markers 173 255. The dubitative marker ew 174 256. The irrealis marker aj 175 257. The 'subjectivity' marker aw 176 258. The quotation marker in/un/n 176 259-261. Elements of which the function is not clear 177 CONTENTS PART IV: TEXTS 262-263. INTRODUCTION 262. Recording and presentation. 263. Individual details about the texts . 264. TEXT I 265. TEXT 11 266. TEXT 111 267-270. TEXT IV 271-279. TEXT v 280-302. TEXT VI 303-306. TEXT VII 307-315. TEXT VIII 316-320. TEXT IX 321-344. TEXT x PART V: WORD LIST MAP I: ASl\IAT AND RELATED LANGUAGES XI page 180 180 181 184 184 186 186 190 200 232 238 250 256 292 362 MAP IJ: THE FLAMINGO BA Y AREA 363 SKETCHES DIAGRAM: Surwy of thc sllhject- allel object suffixes of categories 10-22, 24. 364 Man holding a paddie decorated with white cockatoo f('athers and a pouch made of pandanus leaves. He is wearing a cap made of the skin of the CtlSCUS and a necklace made of dog's teeth. (Safántes, from ]epém), The informants Mifekpic and Natinák. Thc village of Jcpém. 1962 PART I INTRODUCTION 1 The Asmat Ianguage: area, adjacent Ianguages, dIalects The language of the Ásmat Papuans, Ásmat,l is one of a number of related Papuan languages which are spoken over an extensive area of the coastal plain of South-West New Guinea (Irian Barat). These languages extend along the coast from the River Ópa in the north-west to the mouth of the River Digul in the south-east. 2 The Ásmat region is generally considered to he the coastal strip and the adjacent hinterland between the Rivers Momác (Le Cocq d'Armandville) and Ewtá. In addition to his region, however, Ásmat is also spoken in a small area to the east of the confluence of the Rivers Siréc (Eilanden) and Wildeman; on the coastal strip hetween the Ewtá and Cook Bay (the Casuarinen Coast); and in a few villages on the coast hetween Cook Bay and the mouth of the River Digul. It is still not known with certainty how far inland the Ásmat language-area extends. It was only recently that this coastal area was brought under Government control and that part of the low-lying plain abutting onto the mountainous country in the centre is still practically terra incognita. Up to now, Ásmat villages have been encountered inland to a distance of more than 70 miles. To the north-west of the Ásmat language-area, two languages re1ated Introductory note In the notes the following abbreviations have been used: Kon. Inst. TLV. - Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde. BK! Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, of the Kon. Inst. TLV. VKI Verhandelingen van het Kon. Inst. TLV. MBA Micro-Bibliotheca Anthropos. 1 Two remarks have to be made: (i) accents will be shown only on native names; (ii) the native names of rivers will he given, if possible, and where there is also a Dutch name, this will he added between brackets the first time the river is mentioned. 2 See map at back. 2 THE ASMAT LANGUAGE to Ásmat, Kámoro and Sémpan, are spoken. These two languages cover the whole coastal area between the Rivers Ópa and Otákwa. Between the Otákwa and the Momác, where the Ásmat language-area begins, there are no villages. Nothing is known about the languages to the north and the north-east of the Ásmat language-area: in the east and the south-east, Ásmat meets up with the Áwju and Jakáj languages, which are probably not related to Ásmat,3 Ásmat has various dialects, but a systematic investigation into them has not yet been made, so that little is known about the nature and extent of the dialectical variations. Broadly, Ásmat dialects can he divided into a central group of little differing dialects with, around it, on the periphery of the Ásmat language-area, a number of dialects differing sharply from it: those spoken upstream of the Rivers Pomác (Noordwest), Unir (Lorentz) and Siréc, and the dialect of the Casuarinen Coast. 2 The terrain, the people, the concept of their world The area in which the Kámoro, Sémpan and Ásmat languages are spoken consists mainly of a marshy, low-Iying, thickly wooded plain, intersected by countless rivers and streams of which a noteworthy feature is the ebb and flow of the tide far into the hinterland. The c1imate of the region is very humid and the rainfall abundant - approximately 225 inches a year. The terrain is very heavy going on foot, so the canoe is the usualmeans of transport. It is used extensively. One can go everywhere along the natural network of waterways by canoe and people can thus move about easily and ean cover great distances. The Ásmat people dwell in villages situated along the riv ers. The 3 The data on the Kámoro and Sémpan languages are taken from P. Drabbe, M.S.C., Spraakkunst van de Kámoro-taal, Kon. Inst. TL V., Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1953. The first studies of the Awju and Jakaj languages, also by the same author, are: 1) Twee dialecten van de Awju-taal, BKr, Vol. 106, Part I, 1950, pp. 93-147; 2) Spraakkunst van het Aghu-dialect van de Awju-taal, Kon. Inst. TLV., The Hague, 1957; 3) Ka~ti en Wambon, twee Awju-dialecten, Kon. lnst. TLV., The Hague, 1959; and 4) De Jakaj-taal. Talen en dialecten van Zuid-West Nieuw-Guinea, MBA, Vol. II, Part B, 1954, pp. 73-98. (Vocabulary on pp. 128-142.) INTRODUCTION 3 largest villages have between 1,000 and 2,000 inhabitants; the smaUest less than 100. The total Ásmat population is estimated to be 40,000 persons. The people of the central Ásmat region caU themselves ásmat ow. which probably means 'tree people'.4 According to the Ásmat people, the territory they inhabit, the ásmat capinmi, is enclosed within, and lies at the bottom of, a gigantic coconut: their world is not convex but concave. 5 The boundaries of their world correspond roughly to those of their language-area - between the Casuarinen Coast and the Mimika Coast (where Kámoro is spoken). And one can do the 'journey round the world' by setting out from the Casuarinen Coast, crossing the stretch of water between it and the Mimika Coast, landing there, and then returning to the Casuarinen Coast. Through the middle of this world flows the great River Siréc, rising far away, somewhere at the top of the coconut, cloSe to the holyentrance to the upper world (the outside world). From this opening, in prehistorie times, the heavenly beings descended to earth, in order to populate the world with their descendants. 8 Establishment of Government and the Mlssions; fint linguistic research. It was only in the recent past that the Ásmat region was brought under control- the area was notorious for head-hunting. Only in 1954 did the Government finally set up its seat there, at Ágats, though the Roman Catholie Mission had opened its first Mission station there in 1953. 1t was also at Ágats that the Protestant Mission (The Evangelical Alliance Mission, TEAM for short) began its activities in this region in 1955. 6 4 It is my opinion that, from the diachronical point of view, the word ásmat, or ásmot, is possibly a compound formed with the word for 'tree', now os, and a generic element, now a11l0t, mot, which is found in compounds like ser-amot - ser fish (species of), and probably also in the word setmót, set bird (species of), the name of one of the ceremonial houses (jew) of Suru. The name Ásmat would then he consistent with a tradition that the people sprang from trees. 5 I have to thank D. B. Eyde for this information which he came upon by chance. It is noteworthy, that a concept of the world common to all the Ásmat people, which is not sacred and is spoken of openly, has for so long escaped the attention of European investigators. 6 There is a more detailed description of the first contacts of the Ásmat people with the outside world, and of the establishment of Government, the Roman Catholic Mission and the Protestant Mission in these regions in: V. F. P. M. van Amelsvoort, Early Introduction of Integrated Rural Health into a 4 THE ASMAT LANGUAGE Investigation into the Ianguage spoken in the territory inhabited by the Ásmat people, as in sa many regions in N ew Guinea, was first undertaken by the Roman Catholic and Protestant Missions. The Dutch Missionary, P. Drabbe, who lived in Ágats from 1957 to 1959, made a study of the dialect of the village of Ajám, 20 miles further upstream. In addition, he collected material on various other dialects. Ris gram mar of the Ajám dialect, with a vocabulary, as well as a comparative study of three Ásmat dialects, have been published. 7 The TEAM linguist, C. Roesier, is still working on the Ajám dialect, and Mrs. Dresser, the wife of the TEAM doctor at Pirimapun, Cook Bay is making an initial study of the Ásmat of the Casuarinen Coast. To date, their work has not been published. 4 Present research, choice of dialect The following description of the language is the result of an inves- tigation into the coastal dialect around Flamingo Bay which was carried out from November, 1%0, to September, 1962, under the auspices of the Stichting Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Nieuw-Guinea (W.O.N.G.).8 The aim of this research was the collecting of material for a descrip- tion of one of the Ásmat dialects. Out si de Mission circles in N ew Guinea, almost nothing was known about Ásmat. Drabbe's grammar of the Ajám dialect had been puhlished, though this fact was not known to me until I arrived in the area, and found that the Mission disposed over a few copies of it. The only thing on Ásmat I had had at my disposal was a short vocabulary at the end of Drabbe's Kámoro grammar. Thus a preliminary orientation into the language was not possible. The investigation had to be started from scratch. For some time the Roman Catholic Mission had been opening schools in the Ásmat region, the language taught in them being Malay, Primitive Society, thesis, Van Gorcum & Co., Assen, 1964. This thesis also contains a complete bibliography of works containing information on Asmat, up to 3lth December, 1962. 7 Drabbe, P., M.S.C., Grammar of the Asmat Language, Our Lady of the Lake press, Syracuse, 1959. Drabbe, P., M.S.C., Dictionary of the Asmat Language, Our Lady of the Lake Press, Syracuse, 1959. Drabbe, P., M.S.C., Drie Asmat-dialecten, VKI, Vol. 42, 1963. 8 The activities of the W.O.N.G. Foundation we re continued by a new Foun- dation, de Stichting voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek van de Tropen, W.O.TRO., af ter the transfer of West New Guinea to Indonesia. INTRODUCTION 5 the lingua franca of West N ew Guinea. I t was therefore obvious that the thing to do in this situation was to use Malay as the contact language and to make use of bilingual informants - Ásmat Papuans who had acquired areasonable knowledge of Malay in school. On arrival in the area, it became c1ear that the number of Ásmat Papuans with such a knowledge of Malay was meagre. These potential informants belonged almost entirely to the younger genera ti on - children who had attended the three-year lower school of the Mission at the Government Station at Ágats, or who had left it. Only a few of the older men knew some Malay. The children who went to school in Ágats came from the neighbouring village of Suru, and from Ajám. The language of the village of Ajám, already examined by Drabbe, belonged to a dialect different from that of the coastal villages, one of which was Suru, in the environs of Ágats, and I therefore decided to make the dialect spoken at Suru the object of the investigation. 6 The Flamingo Bay dialect: area, hlstory The Flamingo Bay dialect is spoken hy about 2,600 people who live in five villages, Ewér, Suru, Jepém, Per and Uwus,9 situated in the immediate vicinity of Flamingo Bay. In the literature on Ásmat, this group of villages is also called Bismám, but the people themselves apply this name only to the villages of Ewér allel Suru, of which the inhabitants formerly lived together. The oral historical tradition of these villages goes back about a century. About the middle of the 19th century, Ewér, Suru, Uwus, and the village of Majit, stood together on the River Mow: UWlls is still there (see map). Jepém and Per, situatecl on the Jomót and the Mani, respectively, were then on the upper reaches of these small streams, with, at that time, the village of Kajé standing beside Per. Later on, Majit affiliated with Suru, while Kajé ceased to exist, 9 According to the data furnished by the Medica! Service for 1961, published in V. F. P. M. van Amelsvoort's thesis (sec notc 5), p. 192, the population of these villages at that time was: Ewér 686 Suru 697 ]epérn . 401 Per 365 Uwus 504 Tota! 2653 6 THE ASMAT LANGUAGE because its inhabitants dispersed to different villages af ter the death in battle of their foremost warrior.1 0 Some of the Kajé people went to live at Suru. The inhabitants of Ewér and Suru left the Mow and, af ter wandering about for some time, settled in their present dwelling place. The language of the villages around Flamingo Bay exhibit small lexical variations as between one village and another. Within Suru, the descendants of the people fr om Kajé are distinguished from the 'true' people of Suru by some lexical peculiarities in their speech. These singularities are regarded by the non-Kajé people as typical of the latter. Nothing comparable concerning the people from Majit came to my attention. ll 6 Work wUh lnfonnants The collaboration of two boys from Suru who were in the third and highest class at the Roman Catholic Mission school, was arranged with the help of the Mission. These boys were about 13 years old and appeared to be fairly intelligent. One of them, Mifekpic, was the pnncipal informant throughout the entire investigation. The other, Natinák, worked with me for over a year. Mifekpic, baptised Andreas, was a grandson of Warsékomen, the oldest of the chiefs of Suru and the most influential man in the Flamingo Bay area. Through his grandfather, Mifekpic was descended from the people of Kajé. Natinák, baptised Natalis, was related on his mother's side to the people of Amorép, a village belonging to the Ajám dialect-area. Both boys also had relatives in the village of Jepém, 10 I was told in Jepém that, on the death of the most important tesmájipic, warrior, it was formerly the usual practice for the group to break up,' and for the people in it to seek affiliation with other groups ('villages'). 11 Asmat villages are not c10sed communities as far as language is concerned. Formerly, there was a regular influx of people speaking other dialects con- sequent upon the practice of abducting women and children during headhunting raids; by the adoption of children at the peace ceremony; and by people affiliating with other villages (see note 9). At the present time, it is especially the family connections with other villages (probably as a result of the historical facts above mentioned) which provide the contact with people speaking different dialects. In J epém, I know of family connections with four villages in another dialect-area, namely, Ac, Amánamkaj, Miwár and Ománesep. Although the Asmat people who speak one dialect regard anyone speaking another dialect as fasi (crooked, wrong), no similar judgement regarding the small language differences within the village community ever has come to my attention.