Renger van Dasselaar

PhD candidate in Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics at the University of Oxford. Working on the description and documentation of tone languages in Papua New Guinea.

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A last, positive #wordoftheweek before summer! Amiqira is an adjective that can be translated as ‘good, nice, beautiful, clean’. There’s no better way to describe the amazing New Guinean landscape! The #wordoftheweek is afeennana ‘kangaroo’. New Guinea is home to several types of tree kangaroos. When moving on the ground, they hop like terrestrial kangaroos. But they spend most of their life in treetops, using their long tail for balance. The #wordoftheweek is nanda ‘forest’. Larger areas that are more densely overgrown, can be referred to as oombura ‘jungle’. Fua ‘go’ is the #wordoftheweek. When you use this verb in Binumarien, you usually specify if the subject is going upward or downward. Ooru fua is ‘go up’, and oonu fua is ‘go down’. Very practical in a mountainous area. It’s a nice example of how geography can shape a language! With the start of term comes a new #WordoftheWeek! Asuru refers to a small, high, white cloud, and is also used for a brilliant white colour. Oonamu is the word for 'cloud' in general. If anyone can identify the species of the bird of prey in the picture, let me know! https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4nF8-NiDZT/ The last #WordoftheWeek for this term: keefaadi ‘mango’! The word for mango is similar in many languages. English borrowed it via Portuguese ‘manga’ and Malay ‘mangga’ from Tamil ‘man’ + ‘kay’. But the origin of the Binumarien word keefaadi is a mystery. Adaka is the #WordoftheWeek! It can be translated with ‘middle’ or ‘waist’ and ‘stem’ (of a tree). The #WordoftheWeek is qiri ‘log’. The letter ‘q’ in Binumarien is used to write a glottal stop. The glottal stop is also how the ‘t’ in ‘butter’ in Cockney English is pronounced (‘bu'er’). The #WordoftheWeek is taatuqee ‘red’. Traditionally, Binumarien distinguishes four main colour categories that correspond to black, white, red, and yellow in English. Colours that have other names in English fall under one of these four categories in Binumarien. For example, cool green and blue colours fall under the same category as black. Kananaana! Skipped two weeks, but we're back with ‘morning’ as #WordoftheWeek! Kananaana is both used to refer to the part of the day before noon, and as a greeting. Term has started, so it’s time for the first #WordoftheWeek of 2024! 🥳 Usakaa is the verb for ‘to build’. Most houses in Binumarien are built with wood, bamboo, and grass from the surrounding forests and fields.
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