Language
name and location:
Kopar,
Papua
New
Guinea
[Refer to
Ethnologue ] |
1. ombe / mbiyona / mbatep (both dialects) (litː ‘'one’') |
2.
kombar(i) (Kopar
dialect),
kombri (Wongan |
3.
kereməŋ
(Kopar
dialect), kereməŋgo |
4.
sanandək
(Kopar
dialect), anandəko
(Wongan |
5. tambək (litː ‘'five’') |
6.
tambək mbatepanda
(Kopar
dialect), tambək mbatepand
(Wongan |
7.
ambək
koɲjiranda (Kopar
dialect), tambək koɲjirand
(W. |
8.
tambək
kereməŋganda
(Kopar
dialect), tambək kereməgad |
9.
tambək
sanandəkanda
(Kopar
dialect), tambək sanandəkand
(Wongan |
10.
aitapor
(Kopar
dialect), aitaporək (Wongan |
11.
aitaporək mbatepanda |
12.
aitaporək koɲjiranda |
13. aitaporək kereməŋ |
14. aitaporək sanandək |
15.
aitaporək tambəkanda |
16. aitaporək tambək mbatepanda |
17. aitaporək ambək koɲjiranda |
18.
aitaporək
tambəkanda kereməŋganda |
19.
aitaporək tambəkanda
sanandəkanda |
20. pwoyn (litː ‘'male, man’') |
21.
pwoyn mbatepanda |
39. pwoyn aitaporəkanda tambəkanda sanandəkanda |
40. pwoyn kompar(i) (litː ‘'two men’') |
60. pwoyn kereməŋ (litː ‘'three men’') |
Linguist providing data and dateː Prof. William A. Foley, Department of
Linguistics, the University of Sydney, Australia. September 29, 2021 |
Other comments: Kopar
is an endangered language spoken by approximately 20 speakers in East Sepik province, Papua New
Guinea. The numeral system of Kopar is fundamentally constructed upon
the anatomy of a human being. It is built on three bases, base five,
base ten and base twenty. Numbers one to five are identical in the two
dialects. Among these, all but ‘four’ are cognate with their
equivalents in Yimas, but unlike there where ‘one’ through ‘four’
inflect for noun class and only the base ‘five’ is invariable, all are
invariable in Kopar. The numeral ‘two’ can be pronounced with or
without the final /i/ in the Kopar dialect. Interesting to note that
both ‘four’ and ‘five’ in the Kopar dialect have the form of adjectival
verbs, with a final suffix -k. The Yimas cognate tam ‘five’ attests to
the ancestral form before this accretion. The final suffix apparent on
these forms is the comitative postposition Kopar nda, Wongan nd ‘together
with’, so each means ‘five together with one, two, etc’. All are
transparent except for ‘seven’ in which the component for ‘two’ koɲjir
is suppletive from the basic numeral for ‘two’ kompar(i). Note that
denasalization applies in the Wongan dialect form for ‘eight’, but not
in the Kopar dialect.
through ‘nineteen’,
simply joining ‘one’ through ‘nine’ to ‘ten’ as the base with the
comitative postposition nda; I will just give Kopar dialect forms from
here: It is pwoyn, a word which means ‘male, man’ and is cognate with Murik puin, Yimas pan-mal and Kanda pon-do, all of which mean ‘male, man’. Hence, ‘twenty’ is a man, a whole man of ten fingers and ten toes which equal twenty. ‘Twenty’ can be simply pwoyn, but more commonly it is expressed as pwoyn mbatep/mbiyona ‘one man’. From ‘twenty-one’ to ‘thirty-nine’, the numerals are pwoyn plus ‘one, two, three, up to nineteen’: “Forty’ is pwoyn kompar(i) ‘two men’, and ‘forty-one’ to ‘fifty-nine’ would again be ‘one’ to ‘nineteen’ coordinated to that by comitative -nda, while ‘sixty’ would be pwoyn kereməŋ ‘three men’. Of course, no one now ever uses such higher numerals, and it is very unlikely anyone ever did, though the generative nature of the system makes them possible. In precontact times, without money and consumer goods, no one had the need to count to these levels; ‘one’ to ‘ten’ was probably more than sufficient. |
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