Keuw language

Keuw (Keu, Kehu) is an unclassified language of New Guinea.

Keuw is spoken in a swampy lowland region along the Poronai River in Keuw village (kampung) of Wapoga District, Nabire Regency, Papua province, Indonesia. According to oral folklore, the Keuw were originally from Woisaru, and then moved to Sanawado, which may be locations in Wapoga District.

Classification

Mark Donohue (2007) said that Kehu is "probably a Geelvink Bay language, but no one knows enough about those languages, systematically, to say this with confidence for [any of them] beyond Barapasi, T(ar)unggare and Bauzi."

Timothy Usher (2018) classifies it as a Lakes Plain language, closest to Awera and Rasawa–Saponi. According to Foley, based on some lexical and phonological similarities, Keuw may possibly share a deep relationship with the Lakes Plain languages. Palmer (2018) treats Keuw as a language isolate.

Phonology

Phonology of Keuw from Kamholz (2012), quoted in Foley (2018):

Consonants

Keuw has ten consonants.

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k
voiced	b	d		ɡ
Fricative		s
Liquid		l
Semivowel	w		j

Vowels

Keuw has five vowels.

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Mid	e	o
Open	a

Tone

Keuw has contrastive tone. Some minimal pairs demonstrating phonemic tonal contrasts:

áalìyò ‘tongue’, áalíyò ‘house’
kíilyô ‘possum’, kíilyò ‘arrow’
úukyò ‘grandfather’, úunyô ‘woman’

Syntax

Keuw has SOV word order, as exemplified by the sentence below. The morphemic suffixes remain unglossed.

kómúul-yò

boar-?

yúmséet-yò

cassava-?

núu-nô

eat-?

kómúul-yò yúmséet-yò núu-nô

boar-? cassava-? eat-?

‘The boar ate the cassava.’

Basic vocabulary

Basic vocabulary of Keuw from Kamholz (2012), quoted in Foley (2018):

Keuw basic vocabulary gloss Keuw ‘bird’ páupǝn ‘blood’ kpíi ‘bone’ ntyéns ‘breast’ túulí ‘ear’ téemé ‘eat’ núu ‘egg’ bléemí ‘eye’ mlúul ‘fire’ núup ‘go’ páwì ‘ground’ píi ‘hair’ plíikd ‘head’ kpúunt ‘leg’ páud ‘louse (body)’ máa ‘louse (head)’ bréen ‘man’ méeli ‘moon’ dyúutǝn ‘one’ bíisìp ‘path, road’ ngkéempúkə ‘see’ líyè, tíyè, kúntáb ‘sky’ tpáapí ‘stone’ tóotí ‘sun’ tandən ‘tooth’ mée ‘tree’ kúd ‘two’ páid ‘water’ yél ‘woman’ úun

The following basic vocabulary words are from the Trans-New Guinea database:

gloss Keuw head kpúunt-yô ear téemé-yô eye mlúul-yô nose klókəә̀n-yô tooth mée-yô tongue áalì-yò pig kómúul-yò egg bléemí-yò blood kpíi-yò bone ntyéns-yô skin mpáakəә́t-yô breast túulí-yò tree kúd-yô sky tpáapí-yò sun táadəә́n-yô moon dyúutəә́n-yò water yél-yò fire núup-yò; óopí-yò stone tóotí-yò road, path ŋkéempúkəә̀-yô eat kéep-yô; núu-nô one bíisìp-yò two páid-yô