Yalë language
Language spoken in Papua New Guinea
title: "Yalë language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["languages-of-sandaun-province", "guriaso–yale-languages", "language-isolates-of-new-guinea"] description: "Language spoken in Papua New Guinea" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalë_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Language spoken in Papua New Guinea ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Yalë |
| altname | Nagatman |
| states | Papua New Guinea |
| region | Sandaun Province |
| coordinates | |
| speakers | 600 |
| date | 1991 |
| ref | e18 |
| familycolor | Papuan |
| fam1 | Senu River or language isolate |
| fam2 | Guriaso–Yale |
| iso3 | nce |
| glotto | yale1246 |
| glottorefname | Yale |
| :: |
|name=Yalë |altname= Nagatman |states=Papua New Guinea |region=Sandaun Province |coordinates= |speakers=600 |date=1991 |ref=e18 |familycolor=Papuan |fam1=Senu River or language isolate |fam2=Guriaso–Yale |iso3=nce |glotto=yale1246 |glottorefname=Yale The Yalë language, also known as Yadë, Nagatman, or Nagatiman, is spoken in northwestern Papua New Guinea. It may be related to the Kwomtari languages, but Palmer (2018) classifies it as a language isolate.
There were 600 speakers in 1991 and 30 monolinguals at an unrecorded date. Foley (2018) reports a total of six villages.
Yalë is in extensive trade and contact with Busa, a likely language isolate spoken just to the south. Yalë has complex verbal inflection and SOV word order.
Phonology
Aannested, Aidan (2020)Aannested, Aidan. (2020). "Towards a grammar of the Yale language: taking another look at archived field data". SIL International. https://www.sil.org/system/files/reapdata/74/13/68/74136897596164130243049362044105596501/Yade_Grammar.pdf gives the following phonology for Yadë (Yalë):
::data[format=table title="Consonants"]
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | Nasal | Plosive | Voiceless | Voiced | Fricative | Affricate | Approximant |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ~ | ~ | ~ | |||||||||
| ~ | |||||||||||
| :: |
- "dd" is pronounced as a trilled
- See the source for more information regarding allophones- the ones listed are just the common occurrences.
::data[format=table title="Vowels"]
| Front | Central | Back | Close | Close-Mid | Open-Mid | Open |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| :: |
- Each vowel has a wide range of possible realizations, most notably /u/, which has:
- /y/, /ʉ/, /ʊ/, and /u̟/
Pronouns
Pronouns are:
:{| ! !! sg !! pl |- ! 1 | bo || se ~ sebo |- ! 2 | ju || so ~ sobo |- ! 3 | colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | bu |}
Grammar
Verbal conjugation affixes are:
- -d: generic marker
- -t: transitive marker
- -b: intransitive marker
Most nouns are not pluralized, and only nouns with human or animate reference or with high local salience may be pluralized using the suffix -rɛ ~ -re:
- nɛba-re /child-PL/ ‘children’
- ama-re /dog-PL/ ‘dogs’
- dife-rɛ /village-PL/ ‘villages’
Other plural nouns are irregular:
- aya-nino /father-PL/ ‘fathers’
- mise ‘woman’, one ‘women’
Vocabulary
The following basic vocabulary words are from Conrad and Dye (1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:
:{| class="wikitable sortable" ! gloss !! Yalë |- | head || ʌsu |- | hair || ʌsʌǏahuᵽa |- | ear || ąhuǏuʔ |- | eye || na:ba |- | nose || yɛlu |- | tongue || aǏižiʔ |- | louse || mibaʔ |- | dog || kaliʔ |- | pig || gǏɛǏiʔ |- | bird || pʋlɛʔ |- | egg || kah |- | blood || wi:nuʔ |- | bone || ɛlɛ:b̶u |- | skin || žib̶uʔ |- | breast || ma:ba |- | tree || ti: |- | woman || mɩsɛʔ |- | water || tuʔ |- | fire || ahuʐiʔ |- | stone || anɩziʔ |- | road, path || ařʌgɛʔ |- | eat || hiɛǏɛ |- | one || žuwaʔ |- | two || teǏɛʔ |}
References
References
- Palmer, Bill. (2018). "The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide". De Gruyter Mouton.
- (2019). "Papua New Guinea languages". [[SIL International]].
- United Nations in Papua New Guinea. (2018). "Papua New Guinea Village Coordinates Lookup". Humanitarian Data Exchange.
- Foley, William A.. (2018). "The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide". De Gruyter Mouton.
- Conrad, R. and Dye, W. "[http://dx.doi.org/10.15144/PL-A40.1 Some Language Relationships in the Upper Sepik Region of Papua New Guinea]". In Conrad, R., Dye, W., Thomson, N. and Bruce Jr., L. editors, ''Papers in New Guinea Linguistics'' No. 18. A-40:1-36. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1975. {{doi. 10.15144/PL-A40.1
- Greenhill, Simon. (2016). "TransNewGuinea.org - database of the languages of New Guinea".
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