Pyu is a language isolate spoken in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. As of 2000, the language had about 100 speakers in Papua New Guinea. It is spoken in Biake No. 2 village (4°01′09″S 141°02′01″E/4.019117°S 141.033561°E/ -4.019117; 141.033561(Biake 2)) of Biake ward, Green River Rural LLG in Sandaun Province. Additionally, there are about 150 speakers in Batom District, Pegunungan Bintang Regency, Highland Papua, Indonesia.

Classification

Timothy Usher links the Pyu language to its neighbors, the Left May languages and the Amto–Musan languages, in as Arai–Samaia stock.

An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013) found lexical similarities with Kimki. However, since the analysis was automatically generated, the grouping could be either due to mutual lexical borrowing or genetic inheritance.

Based on limited lexical evidence, Pyu had been linked to the putative Kwomtari–Fas family, but that family is apparently spurious and Foley (2018) notes that Pyu and Kwomtari are highly divergent from each other. Some similar pronouns are found in both Kwomtari and Pyu:

pronoun Pyu Kwomtari ‘1pl, we’ məla mena ‘2sg, you (sg)’ no une ‘3, he/she/it/they’ na nane

Vocabulary

The following basic vocabulary words are from Conrad & Dye (1975) and Voorhoeve (1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:

gloss Pyu head uǏiʔ; wiri hair Ǐɩsiʔ; lisi ear kweɛ eye bəmeʔ; pɛmɛʔɛ nose tɛpʌǏi tooth rəne tongue asaguʔ louse ni; niʔ dog naguʔ; nakwu pig we; wɛʔ bird maǏuǏiʔ; maru egg Ǐio taʔ; taʔ blood ɛmiʔ; kami bone bəli; bɩǏiʔ skin kagole; kʌkʌǏɛʔ breast ib̶iʔ tree ga; ka man tali; taliʔ woman Ǐomæʔ sun agwiʔ water ʔiʔ; yi fire kamie; kʌmæ stone siri; sɩliʔ road, path ʔonæ; ʔonɛ eat waŋgɛʔ one tefiye; tɛᵽiɛʔ two kasi

External links