Marangis language

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Marangis
Watam
Native toPapua New Guinea
RegionMadang Province, East Sepik Province
Native speakers
590 (2003)[1]
Ramu
Language codes
ISO 639-3wax
Glottologwata1253
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Marangis a.k.a. Watam is a Ramu language of Papua New Guinea. Like Bosmun, it shares a number of irregular plural markers with the Lower Sepik languages, supporting the proposal of a Ramu – Lower Sepik language family.

It is spoken in the two villages of:[2][3]

Pronouns

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The pronominal system of Watam has a four-way distinction, with there being a paucal ("a few", "more than two") number for pronouns in addition to singular, dual, and plural.[4]

person singular dual paucal plural
1st yak aŋga apak ae
2nd u noŋgo niŋga ne
3rd ma miŋga miŋga min

Nouns

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Nominal plural formatives include:[4]

gloss singular plural
‘ear’ kwar kwair
‘elbow’ tutup tutpemb
‘buttocks’ tok toke
‘leg’ or orar
‘man’ namot namtar
‘girl’ namoŋ navgor
‘nose’ ŋgum gubeb
bandicoot maŋem maŋbar
sago wak wik
betelnut meɲjak miɲjik

Verbs

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Watam verbal conjugation for the verb ndo ‘to see’:[4]

tense verbal form
present ndo-ta
present ndo-ri
future ndo-na(n)
imperative ndo

References

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  1. ^ Marangis at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  3. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  4. ^ a b c Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).