Everything about Meriam Language totally explained
Meriam (in the language itself
Meriam Mìr; also
Miriam,
Meryam,
Mer,
Mir,
Miriam-Mir, etc. and
Eastern,
Isten,
Esten and
The Eastern Torres Strait Language) is the language of
Meriam people of
Mer (
Murray Island),
Waier and
Dauar,
Erub (
Darnley Island) and
Ugar (
Stephens Island) in the
Torres Strait,
Queensland,
Australia.
Classification
Although Meriam is located in Australian territory, it's classified as a
Papuan language, not an
Australian language. It has, however, around 25 percent common vocabulary with its Torres Strait Island neighbour Kala Lagaw Ya, which is an Australian language. There are some very minor
Rotuman language and other Melanesian/Polynesian/Indonesian/Japanese and other influences in the form of vocabulary from the substantial community of
Rotuman people and others recruited - or in some cases black-birded - in the 19th and early 20th centuries for pearl diving.
Meriam was placed in the
Eastern Trans-Fly family of
Trans-New Guinea by
Stephen Wurm, who however felt that these have retained remnants of pre-TransNG languages, and this is followed by
Ethnologue (2005). In 2005
Malcolm Ross concluded that the Eastern Trans-Fly languages were not part of the Trans-New Guinea phylum, but kept the family itself with Meriam as a member.
R.M.W. Dixon (2002) regards claims of a relationship between the Fly River languages and Meriam as unproven, despite the very high cognation rate between this language and its sister language, and a certain amount of mutual intelligibility claimed by Meriam speakers.
The other Eastern Trans-Fly languages are
Bine,
Gizra, and
Wipii (also known as Gidra).
Dialects
The language is dialectless. However, formerly there was a separate dialect spoken on Erub and Ugar, characterised by the retention of 'ng' and 'n' in distinction to 'g'/'n' and 'r'. These have fallen together in Modern Meriam, thus 'ng' becoming 'n' at the beginning of words and g within words, and 'n' in general becoming 'r'.
Phonology
Vowels
The sounds represented by [a] and [ə] are allophonic. Schwa appears in mainly syllables BEFORE the stress accent in words and in optionally in open unstressed syllables otherwise. [a] appears in stressed syllables and in unstressed closed syllables.
Consonants
Stress
stress is contrastive in Meriam and can occur on the first or second syllable. Examples are
tábo snake and
tabó neckFurther Information
Get more info on 'Meriam Language'.
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