Elseng language

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title: "Elseng language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["border-languages-(new-guinea)", "languages-of-western-new-guinea", "unclassified-languages-of-new-guinea"] description: "Isolate language spoken in Indonesia" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elseng_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Isolate language spoken in Indonesia ::

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

Field	Value
name	Elseng
nativename	Morwap
region	Papua, Indonesia: Jayapura and Keerom regencies - Abepura, Arso, Kemtuk Gresi, and Senggi districts; Lake Sentani area - south, southwest.
speakers	300
date	2018
ref	e25
familycolor	Papuan
fam1	Border or language isolate
iso3	mrf
glotto	else1239
glottorefname	Elseng
::

|name=Elseng |nativename=Morwap |region=Papua, Indonesia: Jayapura and Keerom regencies - Abepura, Arso, Kemtuk Gresi, and Senggi districts; Lake Sentani area - south, southwest. |speakers=300 |date=2018 |ref=e25 |familycolor=Papuan |fam1=Border or language isolate |iso3=mrf |glotto=else1239 |glottorefname=Elseng

Elseng (Morwap, Janggu, Sawa, Tabu) is a poorly documented Papuan language spoken by about 300 people (in 1991) in the Indonesian province of Papua. It is also known as Morwap, which means "what is it?" ‘Morwap’ is vigorously rejected as a language name by speakers and government officials.

Elseng is spoken in Omon village, Gresi Selatan district, Jayapura Regency; it is also called Tabu or Tapu.

Classification

Laycock classified Elseng as a language isolate but noted pronominal similarities with the Border languages. Ross included it in Border because of these similarities but noted that it does not appear to share any lexical similarities with the family. However, this may be an effect of the paucity of data on Elseng. Foley similarly classifies Elseng as an isolate.

An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013) also found lexical similarities with the Border languages.

Phonology

::data[format=table title="Consonants:"]

Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Plosive	voiceless	voiced	prenas.	Nasal	Fricative	voiceless	voiced	Approximant
::

::data[format=table title="Vowels:"]

Front	Central	Back	Close	Mid	Open
::

Pronouns

Pronouns are:

::data[format=table]

sg	pl	1excl	1incl	2	3
ka	kam
yo
so	sem
yi
::

Basic vocabulary

Elseng basic vocabulary from Menanti (2005), quoted in Foley (2018):

:{| |+ Elseng basic vocabulary ! gloss !! Elseng |- | ‘bird’ || bisyas |- | ‘blood’ || sakwos |- | ‘bone’ || wok |- | ‘breast’ || pan |- | ‘ear’ || waskwos |- | ‘eat’ || tou |- | ‘egg’ || syungwin |- | ‘eye’ || nafon |- | ‘fire’ || bət |- | ‘give’ || venenggiʔ |- | ‘go’ || gele |- | ‘ground’ || mo |- | ‘hair’ || nimbias |- | ‘hear’ || sɨkwen |- | ‘leg’ || poksən |- | ‘louse’ || ku |- | ‘man’ || seseu |- | ‘moon’ || məm |- | ‘name’ || tin |- | ‘road, path’ || mol |- | ‘see’ || nɨnggwen |- | ‘sky’ || kuil |- | ‘stone’ || səpak |- | ‘sun’ || ningnaf |- | ‘tongue’ || mosən |- | ‘tooth’ || an |- | ‘tree’ || sək |- | ‘water’ || vetev |- | ‘woman’ || saun |}

The following basic vocabulary words are from Voorhoeve (1971, 1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:

:{| class="wikitable sortable" ! gloss !! Elseng |- | head || walambiap |- | hair || nimbias |- | ear || mo; uskŋs |- | eye || naf |- | nose || sənpokep |- | tooth || an |- | tongue || mɔs; mɔsən |- | leg || pokəs |- | louse || ku |- | dog || wəs |- | pig || wo |- | bird || bisjas; bisyas |- | egg || suŋun |- | blood || wətwən |- | bone || ok |- | skin || son; sɔn |- | breast || pan |- | tree || sək |- | man || sisɛu; sisew |- | woman || saɔ |- | sun || ninaf |- | moon || mɔm |- | water || wətel; wətəl |- | fire || bot; bɔt |- | stone || səpat |- | road, path || mul |- | eat || to |}

Sentences and phrases

Example sentences and phrases in Elseng:

|ka makən teti |1 POSS father |‘my/our father’}}

|waso amsan |man good |‘good man’}}

|tele si fa-san |father garden work-? |‘Father is working (his) garden.’}}

|tele bas to-san |father ? eat-? |‘Father is eating.’}}

References

References

1. Burung, Wiem. 2000. A Brief Note on Elseng. SIL International Electronic Survey Reports 2000–001.
2. Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013. ''[https://asjp.clld.org/static/WorldLanguageTree-004.zip ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013)]''.
3. Foley, William A.. (2018). "The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide". De Gruyter Mouton.
4. Menanti, Jackie. 2005. ''Sociolinguistic Report on the Elseng Language in Sia-Sia Village, Keerom County, Papua, Indonesia''. Unpublished report. Jayapura: SIL Indonesia.
5. Voorhoeve, C.L. "Miscellaneous Notes on Languages in West Irian, New Guinea". In Dutton, T., Voorhoeve, C. and Wurm, S.A. editors, ''Papers in New Guinea Linguistics'' No. 14. A-28:47-114. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1971. {{doi. 10.15144/PL-A28.47
6. Voorhoeve, C.L. ''Languages of Irian Jaya: Checklist. Preliminary classification, language maps, wordlists''. B-31, iv + 133 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1975. {{doi. 10.15144/PL-B31
7. Greenhill, Simon. (2016). "TransNewGuinea.org - database of the languages of New Guinea".

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