Massep language

Massep (Masep, Potafa, Wotaf) is a poorly documented Papuan language spoken by fewer than 50 people in the single village of Masep in West Pantai District, Sarmi Regency, Papua. Despite the small number of speakers, however, language use is vigorous. It is surrounded by the Kwerba languages Airoran and Samarokena.

Classification
Clouse, Donohue, and Ma (2002) did not notice connections to any other language family. Ethnologue, Glottolog, and Foley (2018) list it as a language isolate. Usher classifies it as Greater Kwerbic. The pronouns are not dissimilar from those of Trans–New Guinea languages, but Massep is geographically distant from that family.

Phonology
Consonants:
 * {| class="wikitable IPA"


 * || t || c || k
 * || ||  || kʷ
 * || ||  || ᵑɡ
 * ɸ || s || ʃ ||
 * β ||  ||  || ɣ
 * m || n || ɲ ||
 * || r || ||
 * w || || j  ||
 * }
 * m || n || ɲ ||
 * || r || ||
 * w || || j  ||
 * }
 * w || || j  ||
 * }
 * }

Some probable consonant leniting sound changes from pre-Massep proposed by Foley (2018):
 * *p > ɸ
 * *b > β
 * *d > r
 * *k > ɣ (perhaps partially)

Vowels:
 * {| class="wikitable IPA"


 * i || u
 * e || o
 * a ||
 * }
 * a ||
 * }

Pronouns
Pronouns are:



! !! sg !! pl ! 1 ! 2 ! 3
 * ka || nyi
 * gu || je
 * evi || ive
 * }

Morphology
Massep case suffixes as quoted by Foley (2018) from Clouse (2002):



! suffix !! case
 * -o ~ -u ~ -a || accusative
 * -ɣoke || dative
 * -aveno || instrumental
 * -meno || associative
 * -(a)vri || locative
 * -ni || allative
 * -a || temporal
 * }
 * -(a)vri || locative
 * -ni || allative
 * -a || temporal
 * }
 * -a || temporal
 * }
 * }

Sentences
Massep sentences as quoted by Foley (2018) from Clouse (2002):

ka icin-o fartasi unu-ɣoke

1SG stone-ACC throw dog-DAT

‘I threw a stone at the dog.’

je saremna yaf-avri

2PL sit house-LOC

‘You (pl.) sat in the house.’

gu ko-war-emon

2SG 1SG.OBJ-see-SG.TNS

‘You see me.’

Word order is SOV.