Berik language

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title: "Berik language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["languages-of-western-new-guinea", "orya–tor-languages"] description: "Tor language spoken in Indonesia" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berik_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Tor language spoken in Indonesia ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]

Field	Value
name	Berik
altname	Sewan
states	Indonesia
region	Tor Atas district, Sarmi Regency
speakers	1,200
date	1994
ref	e25
familycolor	Papuan
fam1	Foja Range (Tor–Kwerba)
fam2	Orya–Tor
fam3	Tor
fam4	Berik–Bonerif
script	Latin
iso3	bkl
glotto	beri1254
glottorefname	Berik
::

|name=Berik |altname=Sewan |nativename= |states=Indonesia |region=Tor Atas district, Sarmi Regency |speakers=1,200 |date=1994 |ref=e25 |familycolor=Papuan |fam1=Foja Range (Tor–Kwerba) |fam2=Orya–Tor |fam3=Tor |fam4=Berik–Bonerif |script=Latin |iso3=bkl |glotto=beri1254 |glottorefname=Berik

Berik (Sewan) is a Papuan language spoken in Indonesia. Speakers are located in four village groups on the Tor River, in Sarmi Regency, Papua Province.

US linguist John McWhorter cited Berik as an example of a language which puts concepts "together in ways more fascinatingly different from English than most of us are aware". Illustrating this, in the phrase Kitobana (meaning "[he] gives three large objects to a male in the sunlight"), affixes indicating time of day, object number, object size, and gender of recipient are added to the verb.

Locations

In Sarmi, Berik is spoken in:

• Tor Atas District
  • Beu Village
  • Bota-Bora Village
  • Dangken Village
  • Kanderjan Village
  • Safron Tane Village
  • Samanente Village
  • Taminambor Village
  • Tenwer Village
  • Toganto Village
  • Waaf village
• Sarmi Timur District
  • Sewan Village
• Bonggo District
  • Tarontha Village

Phonology

Consonants

::data[format=table] | Labial | Alveolar | (Alveolo-) palatal | Velar | Nasal | Plosive & affricate | voiceless | voiced | Fricative | Approximant | Tap | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | m | n | | ng | | | | | | | | | p | t | | k | | | | | | | | | b | d | j | g | | | | | | | | | f | s | | | | | | | | | | | | l | y | w | | | | | | | | | | r | | | | | | | | | | ::

Vowels

Berik has the common six vowel system (/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, and /u/ plus /ə/).

::data[format=table]

Front	Central	Back	Close	Mid	Open
i		u
e	ə	o
	a
::

Verbal morphology

Westrum (1988:150) briefly indicates that Berik encodes whether the action takes place during the day (diurnal) or during the night (nocturnal) in the verb morphology, a rare case of periodic tense whose markers are not easily segmentable.

::data[format=table title="Sample of diurnal and nocturnal distinctions in the paradigm of the verb ‘to give’ in"]

Period	Present	Past	Future
Diurnal	gulbana	gulbanant	gulbafa
Nocturnal	gulbasa	gulbafant	gubafa
::

Sample

• Angtaneʻ bosna Usafe je gatas tarnap ge nuin. Tesa ga belim taban, ga jes talebowel.
• "There was once a person named Usafe who lived near the sago acreages. Whenever he finished cutting down a sago tree, he pounded it"

Notes

References

References

1. "Asian Linguistics Maps: Maluku (the Moluccas) & West Papua". Muturzikin.
2. Matthews, "Berik Literacy Program", p. 109
3. {{Harv. McWhorter. 2008
4. Westrum, "A Grammatical Sketch of Berik," p. 137
5. [[Guillaume Jacques. (2023). "Periodic tense markers in the world’s languages and their sources.". Folia Linguistica.
6. Taken from Jones, "In Pursuit of Discourse Particles", p. 130

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