Mpur language

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title: "Mpur language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["west-papuan-languages", "languages-of-western-new-guinea", "language-isolates-of-new-guinea", "tonal-languages"] description: "Isolate language spoken in Indonesia" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpur_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	Mpur
altname	Amberbaken
states	Indonesia
region	Mpur and Amberbaken Districts, Tambrauw Regency, Southwest Papua on the north coast of the Bird's Head Peninsula
pushpin_map	Indonesia_Western New Guinea#Southeast Asia
coordinates
speakers	5,000
date	2002
ref
familycolor	Papuan
family	Language isolate
dia1	Sirir
dia2	Ajiw
iso3	akc
glotto	mpur1239
glottorefname	Mpur
::

::callout[type=note]

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|name=Mpur |altname=Amberbaken |states=Indonesia |region=Mpur and Amberbaken Districts, Tambrauw Regency, Southwest Papua on the north coast of the Bird's Head Peninsula |pushpin_map = Indonesia_Western New Guinea#Southeast Asia |coordinates = |speakers=5,000 |date=2002 |ref= |familycolor=Papuan |family = Language isolate |dia1=Sirir |dia2=Ajiw |iso3=akc |glotto=mpur1239 |glottorefname=Mpur

Mpur (also known as Amberbaken, Kebar, Ekware, and Dekwambre) is a language isolate spoken in and around Mpur and Amberbaken Districts in Tambrauw Regency of the Bird's Head Peninsula, New Guinea. It is not closely related to any other language, and though Ross (2005) tentatively assigned it to the West Papuan languages, based on similarities in pronouns, Palmer (2018), Ethnologue, and Glottolog list it as a language isolate.

Locations

In Tambrauw Regency, ethnic Mpur people reside in Kebar District, Kebar Timur District, Manekar District, Amberbaken District, Mubrani District, and Senopi District. Villages include Akmuri, Nekori, Ibuanari, Atai, Anjai, Jandurau, Ajami, Inam, Senopi, Asiti, Wausin, and Afrawi.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants in Mpur are:

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

Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Nasal	Plosive	voiceless	voiced	Affricate	Fricative	Semivowel
::

Vowels

Mpur has five vowels: /a, e, i, o, u/.

Tones

Mpur has a complex tonal system with 4 lexical tones and an additional contour tone, a compound of two of the lexical tones. Its tonal system is somewhat similar to the nearby Austronesian languages of Mor and Ma'ya. The neighboring language isolate Abun is also tonal.

Mpur has four lexical tones. There is also a fifth complex contour tone formed as a phonetic compound of two lexical tones. An example minimal set is given below.

• bé ‘but’ (high tone)
• be ‘in’ (mid tone)
• bè ‘fruit’ (low tone)

Vocabulary comparison

The following basic vocabulary words are from Miedema & Welling (1985), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:

:{| class="wikitable sortable" ! gloss !! Mpur (Arfu dialect) !! Mpur (Kebar dialect) |- ! head | èbuam || èbuam |- ! hair | byambur || buambor |- ! eye | éyam || yam |- ! tooth | èbir || bir |- ! leg | pirik || èipèt |- ! louse | iːm || èyim |- ! dog | p(y)èr || pir |- ! pig | duao || duaw |- ! bird | iw (ip) || if |- ! egg | bua || bua |- ! blood | éfar || far |- ! bone | éip || ip |- ! skin | (è)fièk || fièk |- ! tree | perahu || perau |- ! man | dèmonip || mamir |- ! sun | put || put |- ! water | war || war |- ! fire | yit || yèt |- ! stone | biːt || bit |- ! name | muk || emuk |- ! eat | èryèt || barièt |- ! one | tu || tu |- ! two | dokir || dukir |}

References

References

1. "WALS Online -".
2. {{e21. AKC. Amberbaken
3. (2020). "Mpur". [[Glottolog]] 4.3.
4. Ronsumbre, Adolof. (2020). "Ensiklopedia Suku Bangsa di Provinsi Papua Barat". Penerbit Kepel Press.
5. Odé, Cecilia. (2002). "A Sketch of Mpur". Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.
6. Muysken, Pieter. (2008). "From Linguistic Areas to Areal Linguistics". John Benjamins Publishing Company.
7. Palmer, Bill. (2018). "The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide". De Gruyter Mouton.
8. (2018). "The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide". De Gruyter Mouton.
9. Miedema, J. and Welling, F.I. "Fieldnotes on languages and dialects in the Kebar district, Bird's Head, Irian Jaya". In Adams, K., Lauck, L., Miedema, J., Welling, F., Stokhof, W., Flassy, D., Oguri, H., Collier, K., Gregerson, K., Phinnemore, T., Scorza, D., Davies, J., Comrie, B. and Abbott, S. editors, ''Papers in New Guinea Linguistics'' No. 22. A-63:29-52. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1985. {{doi. 10.15144/PL-A63.29
10. Greenhill, Simon. (2016). "TransNewGuinea.org - database of the languages of New Guinea".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::