Biak language

Biak (wós Vyak or 'Biak language'; wós kovedi or 'our language'; Indonesian: bahasa Biak), also known as Biak-Numfor, Noefoor, Mafoor, Mefoor, Nufoor, Mafoorsch, Myfoorsch and Noefoorsch, is an Austronesian language of the South Halmahera-West New Guinea subgroup of the Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages.

According to Ethnologue, it is spoken by about 70,000 people in Biak and Numfor and numerous small islands in the Schouten Islands, located in Papua province of Western New Guinea, northeastern Indonesia.

Dialects
There are a number of different dialects of Biak spoken on various different islands, the most well-known being Biak-Numfoor, spoken on the island of Numfoor. These dialect differences are minor and mostly limited to slight regular sound changes. The vast majority of Biak speakers are also fluent in the local variety of Malay, but not all of them are proficient in standard Indonesian.

Geographical distributions of Biak dialects within Raja Ampat Regency (Ronsumbre 2020):


 * Betew dialect
 * Waigeo Selatan District: Saonek, Saporkren, Yenbeser, Yenwaupur, Sawinggrai, Kapisawar, and Arborek villages.
 * Waigeo Barat District: Mutus, Biantsyi, Waisilip, Manyaifun, Meos Manggara, and Pam villages.
 * Kofiau District: Deer, Balal, and Tolobi villages.
 * Misool District: Pulau Tikus, Solol, Meos Kapal, and Umkabu villages.
 * Samate District: Jefman village.
 * Teluk Manyalibit District: Mumes village.


 * Kafdaron dialect
 * Samate District: Yensawai, Amdui, Yenanas, and Aresi villages


 * Karon dialect
 * Sausapor District: Sausapor village
 * Bikar (Biak Karon) District, Tambrauw Regency


 * Usba dialect
 * Waigeo Utara District: Rauki village.
 * Ayau District: Dorekar and Meosbekwan villages.


 * Wardo dialect
 * Waigeo Timur District: Yensner, Urbinasopen, Yembekaki, and Puper villages.
 * Waigeo Utara District: Menir, Warwanai, Boni, Asukweri, and Kabare villages.
 * Ayau District: Rutung, Reni, and Yenkawir villages.

Sociolinguistic situation
Despite the comparatively high number of speakers compared to some other Austronesian languages, Biak is still in danger of extinction. Within the main towns, the generation of speakers aged between 20 and 50 have only passive knowledge of the language and rarely use the language actively, instead preferring to use Malay. Younger generations do not even generally have passive knowledge of the language. Biak is only actively used as a spoken language by members of the community over 50 years of age or so and even they regularly code switch into Malay. However, within the villages further from town there are still children who are fluent in Biak. Songs in Biak are also very popular throughout the islands.

There is a strong initiative to promote the use of the Biak language, with translations of various books and teaching manuals as well as a radio station and a number of church services throughout the year being conducted solely in Biak. Since 2002, there has also been an initiative to introduce Biak being taught formerly in schools on the islands.

Phonology
Biak has a phoneme inventory consisting of 13 consonants and 5 vowels, in which vowel length is phonemic. In the orthography long vowels are written with an acute accent. The phoneme is very infrequent in its use and some older speakers still realise it as  in loanwords.

The vowel is the only rounded vowel in Biak; the other four are unrounded.

Pronouns and person markers
In Biak pronouns and articles are morphologically related, with both situating a given participant by indicating their relative discourse or spatial (e.g. directional or motional) status. This is not uncommon for Austronesian Languages. Pronouns in Biak are marked for number and clusivity.

Free personal pronouns in Biak share their main distributional properties with nouns; however, they are somewhat more restricted. They can be used as a complement of a predicate or preposition but they cannot be used as subjects. In the example below, the use of the first-person personal pronoun aya can be seen to complement a verb, while the second example shows how a free personal pronoun, in this clause third-person i, cannot be used as a subject:

Badir i ve aya

2SG.announce 3SG to 1SG

'Make it known to me.'

{* i} d-ores

3SG 3SG-stand

'He stood.'

Pronominal affixes
In Biak, pronominal affixes can combine with verbs in three possible inflection patterns (given in the table below), which are partly phonologically conditioned.

Due to the person marking nature of these affixes, the presence of a coreferential subject noun phrase in the same clause is optional. Thus the following sentence is still grammatical without NP Rusa nanine, as the verb has a pronominal affix that gives the same information.

(Rusa nan-i-ne) d-ores

deer GIV-3SG.SPC-this 3SG-stand

'This deer stood.'

These pronominal markers are person markers and are found in the final position of the noun phrase they determine. They attach to verbs along with a specifier that attaches after the pronominal affix; due to their distribution properties these markers should be considered clitics. There are two specificity markers, -ya and –i, where –ya can be used in all positions and -i is restricted to positions before pauses. In the example below the article attaches to the verb vebaya, rather than the verb ifrúr because it is the final verb in the noun phrase headed by for.

'He made a big fire.'

Nonspecificity, which refers to entities that do not yet exist in this world, or is used to question or deny the existence of an entity, is marked with the articles –o for singular and –no for plural noun phrases. This is shown in the examples below:

'He is making/will make a ukulele so that I can take it to the Netherlands'
 * Non-specific

'He has made a ukulele so that I can take it to the Netherlands'
 * Specific

Demonstratives
Biak has identical forms in adnominal and pronominal demonstratives, which is common in Austronesian languages. In Biak, demonstratives can be used as part of complex articles containing demonstrative roots and also motion markers and directionals. Complex articles, however, do not have both a directional and a motion marker.

The table above restricts person-SPC to 3SG marker for an explanation, but i- 3SG marker can be replaced sui- (DU), skoi- (TR), and si- (PL.AN) or na- (PL.INAN). Also, it is important to note that the corpus contains no example of complex articles containing both a directional and a motion marker. Furthermore, yi and wu are used as allomorphs of ya and wa, respectively, but attested in article-final position only.

In Biak, the relationship between the third-person pronouns and demonstratives are unrelated to demonstratives, which is uncommon in Austronesian languages. However, Biak follows the worldwide trend in terms of the relationship.

Moreover, depending on the speaker's relative distance, Biak has three-way distance contrasts of adnominal demonstratives, which is common in Austronesian languages. The comparison is restricted to only adnominal use because some languages do not express the same distance contrasts in adnominal and pronominal demonstratives.

If a complex article contains a demonstrative, the demonstrative is preceded by person-SPC, as illustrated by i-ne 3SG.SPC-this and i-wa 3SG.SPC-over.there, respectively. Also, in the below examples, situational use of demonstratives is shown.

Rwa ma wákors ra var ine.

r&lt;w&gt;a ma w-ák-ors ra var i-ne

&lt;2SG&gt;go to.here 2SG-also-stand along side 3SG.SPC-this

'Come here and stand at this side too.'

Mov iwa snori Mnubei (...)

mov i-wa sno-ri Mnubei (...)

place 3SG.SPC-over.there name-POS.SG Mnubei {}

'The place over there its name is Mnubei (...)'

The paradigm for complex articles sets the basis for deictic nouns, predicative pronouns, and locative-existentials.

Deictic nouns
Deictic nouns are formed by applying the formative di 'place' at the position preceding demonstratives, as illustrated by di-pur-wu 'place-back-over.there' and di-ne 'place-here.'

Skovark ro dipurwu.

sko-vark ro di-pur-wu

3.PAU-lie LOC place-back-over.there

'They live over there.'

Mankroder ine dúnuk ro dine.

mankroder i-ne d-ún-uk ro di-ne

frog 3SG.SPC-this 3SG-take-in.two LOC place-here

'This frog has passed through here.'

The situational use of demonstratives is seen in (9). On the other hand, (10) shows -ne 'this' as the situational use of demonstratives and -ne 'here' as the anaphoric use of demonstratives.

Predicative pronouns
Predicative pronouns are formed by using the inflected predicative is 'PRED' at the position otherwise occupied by the marker of givenness an. This is illustrated by is-i-ne '3SG.PRED-SPC-this' in both (11) and (12).

Isine indya mámel.

is-i-ne indya mám

3SG.PRED-SPC-this so 2SG.see

'Here it (the sago porridge) is, so look!'

Betaweya isine.

'This here is a cassava.'

In (11), it depends on the context whether situational or anaphoric use of the demonstrative is. Situational use of the demonstrative is given in (12).

Locative-existentials
Locative-existentials is different from predicative pronouns because they do not possess a specificity marker, which is illustrated by i-is-wa '3SG.PRED-over.there'.

Karuiya i-is-wa kaker.

'The stone is still there.'

In (13), the use of the demonstrative depends on the context.

Demonstratives
For the semantic characterization of demonstratives, a part of Levinson's terminology should be known to grasp the difference between the Figure and the Ground or the Relatum. The Figure refers to an entity positioned somewhere in Space, while the Ground or the Relatum designate the entity in terms of where the entity is.

As additional information, there are three essential points about Levinson's terminology. First, the 'frame of reference' can be classified as an intrinsic frame of reference, a relative frame of reference, and an absolute frame of reference. Second, it is crucial to grasp the origo of the coordinate system. The deictic centre called origo is approximately equal to the speaker's position. Third, it is vital to comprehend deixis. For spatial deixis, the interpretation of spatial linguistics elements is defined by the location of extra-linguistic entities.

Regarding the demonstratives usage, it may be followed by pointing, such as lip-pointing, head pointing, or finger pointing.

Demonstratives
From a perspective of syntax, Deictic nouns typically set the complement of a preposition. This is clear from the form di-ne 'place-here,' di-wa 'place-over.there' in (14) and (15), respectively. However, the demonstrative locational nouns are used on their own, without a preceding preposition. This is illustrated by di-ne 'place-here' in (16).

Ivyovr ve dine myáse.

i-vyovr ve di-ne m-yás

3SG-sweep to place-here to.here-up

'It (the big wave) swept towards this place here upwards.'

Ikun si ro diwa.

i-kun si ro di-wa

3SG-burn 3PL.ANIM LOC place-over.there

'He burnt them (his skin) over there.'

Dine, randakya karui veba.

'Here, in the beginning there were big stones.'

In (14), (15), and (16), these contain the situational use of demonstratives.

Possession
Similar to other Austronesian languages, Biak makes a grammatical distinction between alienable and inalienable for possession.

Alienable possession
In alienable possession, a possessive pronominal is formed with the possessive marker ve to signify the person, number and gender of the possessor, and is followed by a pronominal article marking the gender and number of the possessed. The pronominal article contains the specificity markers -i and -ya, with -i being used only in pre-pausal positions. The following table illustrates the possessive pronominal construction.

Typically, Biak follows a possessor-possessum structure for alienable possessive construction, with the possessive pronominal in the adnominal position:

ikak an-i-ne snonsnon v&lt;y&gt;e=d-ya Kormsamba

snake GIV-3SG.SPC-this name &lt;3SG&gt;POSS=3SG-SPC Kormsamba

'The Snake’s name was Kormsamba'

However, alienable possession can also be formed in the order of possessum-possessor, though this is much less frequent:

romawa inai manseren v&lt;y&gt;e=s-ya

son daughter Lord 3SG&gt;POSS=3PL.AN-SPC

'The Lord's sons and daughters'

Inalienable possession
Inalienable possessive construction differs from alienable in that there is no system of pronominal possessives, only a set of affixes located on the possessum. In contrast to alienable possession, inalienable possession can only take the order of possessor-possessum. Biak contains three subsets of inalienability: body parts, Kinship, and locational.

Body parts
Not all body parts are considered inalienable. Those that are form the stem words from which to derive other body parts through the method of compounding. For example, the alienable 'knee' is formed through the inalienable stem we ('leg') and the compounding pur ('back') to form wepur. Possessive construction for alienable body parts follows the same pattern as other alienable terms. The inflectional system for inalienable body parts is as follows:

Unusual for Austronesian languages of the area, Biak contains a partial prefix system for inflecting inalienable body parts. For the plural forms, suffix -s reflects plurality and animateness of possessor and suffix na expresses plurality and inaninameteness of the possessum. As stated above, inalienable possession is formed via a possessor-possessum structure:

sne-ri i-ba

belly-POSS.SG 3SG-big

'She was pregnant (her belly was big)'

Kinship terms
Similarly to body parts, not all kinship terms are inalienable. The alienable kinship terms are formed through the same compounding method as alienable body parts, and follow the same possessive construction rules as other alienable terms. This table illustrates the inflectional system for inalienable kinship words:

All nouns that follow the table's procedure have an idiosyncratic form for the first person, using a shorter term for the second and third person. (REF pg. 244) Here is an example of the usage of inalienable kinship inflection:

s&lt;y&gt;éwar kma-r=i

&lt;3SG&gt;seek father-POSS.3SG=3SG

'He looked for his father'

Locational nouns
Locational nouns are the last distinction of inalienability found in Biak. Locational nouns refer to locations that are ‘inherently connected to an entity’. For example, a tree in Biak is referred to as having an 'upper part' and a 'lower part', and a canoe a 'front', a 'middle' and a 'back'. The following table exhibits the inflectional system for inalienable locational nouns:

The suffix -n expresses the plurality and inanimateness of the possessum (REF pg. 250). The locational noun possessive structure is illustrated in this example:

bal i-ne v&lt;y&gt;ark ro karui=su-ya bonsu

ball 3SG.SPC-this &lt;3SG&gt;lie LOC stone=3DU-SPC upside-NSG.INAN-3DU

'This ball lies on top of two stones'

Negation
Biak distinguishes between factual and imperative negation (prohibitive). The marker for factual negation is va. For prohibitive it is awer.

Factual negation: va
The negator va occurs clause-finally in intransitive and transitive clauses.

Isyor va.
 * Intransitive

i-syor va

3SG-low.tide NEG

'It's not low tide'

Dan (i)mbyefya va.
 * Transitive

'S/he does not eat the banana.'

Yafár kám i va.

ya-fár kam i va

1SG-tell all 3SG NEG

'I have not told all of it.'

Roma vyanine dóve bapak isne va, yakramu seno va.

romawa v&lt;y&gt;=an-i-ne d-óve bapak is-ne va ya-kram=u sen=o va

son &lt;3SG&gt;POS=GIV-3SG.SPC-this 3SG-say father 3SG.PRED-this NEG 1SG-store=U cent=NSPC.SG NEG

'His son said "father isn't here, I do not have a penny." '

In clauses with non-core arguments, va follows directly the argument it negates.

Denf ro dine va.

d-enf ro di-ne va

3SG-sleep LOC place-this NEG

'He does not sleep here' (but somewhere else).

Denf va ro dine.

d-enf va ro di-ne

3SG-sleep NEG LOC place-this

'He does not sleep here' (but does something else here).

Va is also used to negate nominal clauses.

Guruno va.

'There are no teachers.'

Factual negation in complex clauses
In complex clauses with fa, a conjunction expressing result, it seems that the negator va always occurs last in the sentence. In the corpus of spontaneous speech collected by van den Heuvel, there are no examples with va appearing at the end of the first clause.

Mansren Yesus ipok fa vyefarander ko va.

Manseren Yesus i-pok fa v&lt;y&gt;e-farander ko va

Lord Jesus 3SG-able CONS &lt;3SG&gt;VBZ-forget 1PL.INCL NEG

'The Lord Jesus cannot forget us.'

In other complex clauses the negator may follow the first or final clause.

Dár ve randip va voi, dár ve snonkaku.

d-ár ve randip va voi d-ár ve snonkaku

3SG-cry as pig NEG but 3SG-cry as human.being

'It did not cry as a pig but as a human being.'

Sansun vyena naisya voi, dáknayu sarako va.

sansun v&lt;y&gt;e=na na-is-ya voi d-ák-na-yu sarak=o va

clothes &lt;3SG&gt;POS=3PL.INAN.SPC 3PL.INAN-PRED-that but 3SG-also-have-YU bracelet=NSPC.SG NEG

'His clothes were there, but he did not (also) have a bracelet.'

Vyeurus pyum bakn vyedine va rao isofro dármaker.

v&lt;y&gt;e-urus pyum bakn v&lt;y&gt;e=d-i-ne va rao isofro d-ármakr

&lt;3SG&gt;VBZ-arrange good body &lt;3SG&gt;VBZ=3SG-SPC-this NEG until 3SG-scabies

'He did not take care of his body very well, until he got scabies.'

With bukan
Bukan is a loan from Malay/Indonesian. In Indonesian, the use of bukan, outside its function of negating noun phrases, expresses emphasis. The use of bukan in Biak also appears to express emphasis – in the examples given by van den Heuvel, it use occurs when a contrast is given. Bukan is used in combination with va. Bukan precedes the first verb and va is in its usual place at the end of the clause.

Indya bukan kokain kofafyár biasa va.

indya bukan ko-kain ko-fafyár biasa va

so NEG 1PL.INCL-sit 1PL.INCL-tell usual NEG

'So we are not (just) sitting and telling here (but have a serious meeting)'

Pendeta dóve "a, bukan yakofn ve ko vape yakofn ve warga jemaatsi.

'The minister said "Ah, I did not say that to us, but to the members of the church!"'

Imperative negation: awer
The prohibitive marker awer is used to negate arguments in 1st, 2nd and 3rd person.

Voi komyof setengah awer i voi komyof kaku i kám fa…
 * 1st person

voi ko-myof setengah awer i voi ko-myof kaku i kám fa

but 1PL.INCL-defend half PROH 3SG but 1PL.INCL- defend true 3SG all CONS

'And let us not defend half of it, but let's really defend all of it, so that …'

Wenf awer!
 * 2nd person

w-enf awer

2SG-sleep NEG

'Do not sleep!'

Ipok vyunk awer mnor vyena.
 * 3rd person

i-pok v&lt;y&gt;unk awer mnor v&lt;y&gt;e=na

3SG-can &lt;3SG&gt;wipe.off not mucus &lt;3SG&gt;POS=3PL.INAN.SPC

'He is not allowed to wipe off his mucus.'

Other negators
To express 'not yet', Biak uses the marker vanim/vaim. For 'not any more' wer va is used.

Ono sibur ve movo movo vaím kám vo (…)

'There were not yet any people at all who had left to other places and (….)'

Sikafkif fa sséwar sarak ini. Ma sisrow i vanim.

si-kaf~kif fa s-séwar sarak i-ne ma si-srow i vanim

3PL.AN-REDUP~pick CONS 3PL.AN-seek bracelet 3SG.SPC-this and 3PL.AN-find 3SG not.yet

'They (the chickens) pick to find this bracelet. And they have not found it yet.'

Bukuno vaíme.

'There are no books yet'.

Isyor wer va.

I-syor wer va

3SG-low.tide again not

'It is not low tide any more.'

Typological perspectives
In Austronesian languages, the negator commonly precedes the predicate. Thus Biak, with clause final negation, is atypical in this feature. Clause final negation, however, is a common feature in the region of the Eastern Bird's Head Peninsula, in both Austronesian and Papuan languages. It appears to be of Papuan origin.

Glossary
 SPC:specific NSPC:nonspecific NSG:non-singular GIV:given SIM:simultaneous 