Iwam language

May River Iwam, often simply referred to as Iwam, is a language of East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea.

It is spoken in Iyomempwi (-4.24117°N, 141.89271°W), Mowi (-4.29497°N, 141.9292°W), and Premai villages of Tunap/Hunstein Rural LLG in East Sepik Province, and other villages on the May River.

Vowels
In non-final positions,, , and  are  , , and , respectively. appears only in nonfinal syllables. When adjacent to nasal consonants, vowels are nasalized; nasalization may also occur when adjacent to word boundaries.

Consonants
and are voiced fricatives ( and ) respectively) when intervocalic and unreleased when final ( is also unreleased when final).   is a nasal flap  word-initially and between vowels.   is  initially and may otherwise be palatalized .  Sequences of any consonant and  are neutralized before  where an offglide is always heard.

Phonotactics
Bilabial and velar consonants and may be followed by  when initial. Other initial clusters include, , , , and and final clusters are  or  followed by any consonant except for  or.

Pronouns
May River Iwam pronouns:



! !! sg !! du !! pl ! 1 ! 2 ! 3m ! 3f
 * ka/ani || kərər || kərəm
 * ki || kor || kom
 * si
 * rowspan="2" | sor
 * rowspan="2" | səm
 * sa
 * }

Noun classes
Like the Wogamus languages, May River Iwam has five noun classes:



! class !! semantic category !! prefix !! example ! class 1 ! class 2 ! class 3 ! class 4 ! class 5
 * male human referents || nu- (adult males); ru- (uninitiated or immature males) || yenkam nu-t man class.1-one ‘one man’
 * female human, children, or other animate referents || a(o)- || owi a-ois duck class.2-two ‘two ducks’
 * large objects || kwu- || ana kwu-(o)t hand class.3-one ‘a big hand’
 * small objects || ha- || ana ha-(o)t hand class.4-one ‘a small hand’
 * long objects || hwu- || ana hwu-(o)t hand class.5-one ‘a long hand’
 * }

As shown by the example above for ana ‘hand’, a noun can take on different classes depending on the physical characteristics being emphasized.

Vocabulary
The following basic vocabulary words of Iwam are from Foley (2005) and Laycock (1968), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:


 * {| class="wikitable sortable"

! gloss !! Iwam ! head ! ear ! eye ! nose ! tooth ! tongue ! leg ! louse ! dog ! pig ! bird ! egg ! blood ! bone ! skin ! breast ! tree ! man ! woman ! sun ! moon ! water ! fire ! stone ! eat ! one ! two
 * mu
 * wun
 * nu
 * nomwos
 * piknu
 * kwane
 * wərku; wɨrku
 * ŋən; nɨn
 * nwa
 * hu
 * owit
 * yen
 * ni
 * keew; kew
 * pəw
 * muy
 * pae(kap); paykap
 * kam; yen-kam
 * wik
 * pi
 * pwan
 * op; o(p)
 * pay
 * siya
 * (n)ai; (nd)ai
 * oe; ruk; su
 * ŋwis
 * }