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Kalam language

Kalam is a Kalam language of Papua New Guinea. It is closely related to Kobon, and shares many of the features of that language. Kalam is spoken in Middle Ramu District of Madang Province and in Mount Hagen District of Western Highlands Province.

Thanks to decades of studies by anthropologists such as Ralph Bulmer and others, Kalam is one of the best-studied Trans-New Guinea languages to date.

Dialects

There are two distinct dialects of Kalam that are highly distinguishable from each other.

  • , with 20,000 speakers, is centered in the Upper Kaironk and Upper Simbai Valleys.
  • , with 5,000 speakers is centered in the Asai Valley. It includes the Tai variety.

Kobon is closely related.

Kalam has an elaborate pandanus avoidance register used during karuka harvest that has been extensively documented. The Kalam pandanus language, called (pandanus language) or (avoidance language), is also used when eating or cooking cassowary.

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Evolution

Below are some Kalam reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea proposed by Pawley (2012, 2018). Data is from the dialect unless otherwise noted. Data from , the other major dialect, is also given when noted.

Verbs

Kalam has eight tense-aspect categories. There are four past tenses, two present tenses, and two future tenses, which are all marked using suffixes:

  • past habitual
  • remote past (yesterday or earlier)
  • today's past
  • immediate past
  • present habitual
  • present progressive
  • immediate future
  • future

Intransitive verbs in Kalam can be classified as either active or stative. Some active intransitive verbs are:

  • - 'go'
  • - 'sleep'
  • - 'stand, dance'
  • - 'die, cease to function'

Some stative verbs are:

  • - '(of things) break, be broken'
  • - '(of a fire) go out'
  • - 'burn, be burnt, fully cooked'
  • - '(of solid objects and surfaces) crack, burst, shatter'

Serial verb constructions

Transitivity is derived using resultative or cause-effect serial verb constructions.

Other serial verb constructions in Kalam include:

  • d ap (get come) 'bring'
  • d am (get go) 'take'
  • am d ap (go get come) 'fetch'
  • d nŋ (touch perceive) 'feel'
  • ñb nŋ (eat perceive) 'taste'
  • tb tk (cut sever) 'cut off'

Nouns

Compounds

Some examples of nominal compounds in Kalam:

Animal names

Fauna classification (folk taxonomy) in the Kalam language has been extensively studied by Ralph Bulmer and others. Kalam speakers classify wild mammals into three major categories:

Other animal categories are:

  • 'flying birds and bats'
  • 'cassowaries'
  • 'pigs' (formerly including cattle, horses, and goats when first encountered by the Kalam)
  • 'dogs'
  • 'certain snakes'
  • 'skinks'

Rodent names include:

Marsupial names include:

Reptile names and folk taxonomy in Kalam:

Frog names in Kalam are:

Note: Cophixalus shellyi, Choerophryne darlingtoni, and Oxydactyla brevicrus also tend to be identified by Kalam speakers as lk if calling from low vegetation, but as gwnm (usually applied to Cophixalus riparius and Xenorhina rostrata) if found in daytime hiding spots.

Plant categories include:

  • mon 'trees and shrubs' (excluding palms and pandans); e.g., bljan Macaranga spp.' is a mon that has four named kinds
  • mñ 'vines and robust creepers'

A comprehensive list of Kalam plant and animal names is given below.

Semantics

Colors

Kalam speakers distinguish more than a dozen color categories.

  • 'white, light coloured'
  • 'grey, esp. of hair'
  • 'light grey; ash'
  • 'black, dark coloured'
  • 'red/purple; blood'
  • 'orange/bright reddish-brown/bright yellowish-brown/rich yellow; ripe'
  • 'rather bright red-brown/yellow brown'
  • 'yellow'
  • 'green'
  • 'pale green, yellow-green; unripe (of fruit)'
  • 'rich green, sheeny; succulent or mature (of foliage)'
  • 'dull brown, green or olive'
  • 'straw coloured; withered (of foliage)'
  • 'blue'
  • 'blue-grey, as blue-grey clay'
  • 'striped, spotted, mottled'

Time

Pawley and Bulmer (2011), quoted in Pawley and Hammarström (2018), lists the following temporal adverbs in Kalam.

  • 'today'
  • 'tomorrow'
  • 'day after tomorrow'
  • 'yesterday'
  • 'day before yesterday'
  • '3 days from today'
  • '3 days ago'
  • '4 days from today'
  • '4 days ago'
  • '5 days from today'
  • '5 days ago'

Morphology

Rhyming compounds

Kalam, like English, has different types of rhyming compounds.

alternating consonants
  • gadal-badal [ŋgándálmbándál] 'placed in a disorderly manner, criss-cross, higgledy-piggledy'
  • gley-wley [ŋgɨléywuléy] 'rattling, clattering'
addition of consonants
  • adk-madk [ándɨkmándɨk] 'turned over, reversed'
  • ask-mask [ásɨkmásɨk] 'ritually restricted'
alternating vowels
  • ñugl-ñagl [ɲúŋgɨlɲáŋgɨl] 'sound of evening chorus of insects and frogs'
  • gtiŋ-gtoŋ [ŋgɨríŋgɨróŋ] 'loud noise, din, racket'

See also

References

Further reading

  • Bulmer, Ralph N.H. 1967. Why is the cassowary not a bird? A problem of zoological taxonomy among the Karam of the New Guinea highlands. Man 2(1): 5–25.
  • Bulmer, Ralph N.H. 1968. Kalam colour categories. Kivung 1(3): 120–133.
  • Bulmer, Ralph N.H. 1974. Folk biology in the New Guinea highlands. Social Science Information 13(4/5): 9–28.
  • Bulmer, Ralph N.H. and J.I. Menzies. 1972–1973. Kalam classification of marsupials and rodents. Journal of the Polynesian Society 81(4): 472–499, 82(1):86–107.
  • Bulmer, Ralph N.H. and Michael Tyler. 1968. Karam classification of frogs. Journal of the Polynesian Society 77(4): 621–639.
  • Bulmer, Ralph N.H., J.I. Menzies and F. Parker. 1975. Kalam classification of reptiles and fish. Journal of the Polynesian Society 84(3): 267–308.
  • Majnep, Ian Saem and Ralph Bulmer. 1977. Birds of my Kalam Country. Auckland: Auckland and Oxford University Presses.
  • Majnep, Ian Saem and Ralph Bulmer. 2007. Animals the Ancestors Hunted: An Account of the Wild Mammals of the Kalam Area, Papua New Guinea. Adelaide: Crawford House Australia.