Tofanma or Tofamna is a poorly documented Papuan language of Indonesia. Wurm (1975) placed it as an independent branch of Trans–New Guinea, but Ross (2005) could not find enough evidence to classify it. It appears to be related to Namla, a neighboring language.

Vocabulary

Tofanma vocabulary from Foley (2018):

gloss Tofanma ‘bird’ yetai ‘blood’ læki ‘bone’ da ‘breast’ mu ‘ear’ kemblale ‘eat’ dimisipe ‘egg’ li ‘eye’ yei ‘fire’ ve ‘give’ vænə ‘go’ wao ‘ground’ yai ‘hair’ kemblena ‘hear’ varli ‘I’ ne ‘leg’ wukudaʔ ‘louse’ bili ‘man’ lamle ‘moon’ min-yaku ‘name’ ame ‘one’ kenanu ‘road, path’ mæki ‘see’ mæsi ‘sky’ nəmlo ‘stone’ kəlo ‘sun’ yaku ‘tongue’ kuguku ‘tooth’ dimi ‘tree’ la ‘two’ næni ‘water’ basu ‘we’ ngu ‘woman’ ale ‘you (sg)’ wo ‘you (pl)’ dule

The following basic vocabulary words are from Voorhoeve (1971, 1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:

gloss Tofanma head kemble hair kemble-na ear kemb lelu eye jei; yei nose məniti tooth geme tongue goŋgogok leg wanta louse bli bird jetai; yetai egg taili blood leki bone nta skin jefake; yefake breast mo tree kili man lame woman ale sun jaku; yaku moon menti-gaku water basu fire we stone klo road, path meka name emi eat sembe one kenano two neni

  • Wambaliau, Theresia. 2005. Survey Report on the Tofanma Language in Papua, Indonesia. (in Indonesian). Unpublished manuscript. Jayapura: SIL Indonesia.

External links