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.

Phonology

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

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

Verbal morphology

May river Iwam has four periodic tense suffixes: matutinal -yok, diurnal -harok, postmeridial -tep and nocturnal -wae.

Vocabulary

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