Kimki language

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

::summary Pauwasi language spoken in Indonesia ::

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

Field	Value
name	Kimki
nativename	Sukubatom
states	Indonesia
region	Papua: Pegunungan Bintang Regency, Batom District, near Sepik River entrance to Papua New Guinea
speakers	500
date	2004
ref	e18
familycolor	Papuan
fam1	Pauwasi
fam2	Yetfa – South Pauwasi
fam3	South Pauwasi
iso3	sbt
glotto	kimk1238
glottorefname	Kimki
::

|name=Kimki |nativename=Sukubatom |states=Indonesia |region=Papua: Pegunungan Bintang Regency, Batom District, near Sepik River entrance to Papua New Guinea |speakers=500 |date=2004 |ref=e18 |familycolor=Papuan |fam1=Pauwasi |fam2=Yetfa – South Pauwasi |fam3=South Pauwasi |iso3=sbt |glotto=kimk1238 |glottorefname=Kimki

Kimki (Aipki) or Sukubatom (Sukubatong) is a South Pauwasi language of Batom District, Pegunungan Bintang Regency, Papua, Indonesia. Foley classifies Kimki as a language isolate, although he notes some similarities with Murkim. Usher demonstrates a connection to the other South Pauwasi languages.

An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013) found lexical similarities with Pyu. However, since the analysis was automatically generated, the grouping could be either due to mutual lexical borrowing or genetic inheritance.

Dialects include the varieties spoken in Batom and Sabi villages (Rumaropen 2004).

Pronouns

Pronouns are: :{| |+ Kimki independent pronouns ! !! sg !! pl |- ! 1 | win || name |- ! 2 | fume || same |- ! 3 | colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | mame |}

Basic vocabulary

Basic vocabulary of Kimki listed in Foley (2018):

:{| |+ Kimki basic vocabulary ! gloss !! Kimki |- | ‘bird’ || ã |- | ‘blood’ || afupla |- | ‘bone’ || kwal |- | ‘breast’ || mua |- | ‘ear’ || bwa |- | ‘eat’ || auko |- | ‘egg’ || im |- | ‘eye’ || ẽ |- | ‘fire’ || kamop |- | ‘give’ || an |- | ‘go’ || bi ~ kaik |- | ‘ground’ || nim |- | ‘hair’ || it |- | ‘hear’ || fas |- | ‘leg’ || up |- | ‘louse’ || nim |- | ‘man’ || ap |- | ‘moon’ || lokaya |- | ‘name’ || aip ~ mi |- | ‘one’ || amatri |- | ‘road, path’ || bagin |- | ‘see’ || weː |- | ‘sky’ || fim |- | ‘stone’ || kwil |- | ‘sun’ || bwakaya |- | ‘tongue’ || albak |- | ‘tooth’ || luː |- | ‘tree’ || maul |- | ‘two’ || alas |- | ‘water’ || dɪ |- | ‘woman’ || kiam |}

Sentences

Some example sentences in Kimki from Rumaropen (2004), as quoted in Foley (2018):

|warime mame aik |yesterday 3 come |‘He came yesterday.’}}

|mame mambak me bi |3 village OBL go |‘She went to the village.’}}

|mame kaes augo |3 cooked.rice eat |‘She eats cooked rice.’}}

|mame wambani wel-aba-me an |3 money 1SG.POSS?-father-OBL? give |‘She gave money to my father.’}}

Only 12 sentence examples are given by Rumaropen (2004). Other than that, there are virtually no other sentences and texts available for Kimki.

References

References

1. 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)]''.
2. [https://newguineaworld.linguistik.uzh.ch/families/pauwasi-river/yetfa-south-pauwasi-river/south-pauwasi-river New Guinea World, South Pauwasi River]
3. Foley, William A.. (2018). "The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide". De Gruyter Mouton.
4. Rumaropen, Benny. 2004. Sociolinguistic report on the varieties of the Kimki Language in the region southeast of Ji Mountain, Papua, Indonesia. (in Indonesian). Unpublished ms. Jayapura: SIL Indonesia.

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