Village Traditional enemies
Traditional trade partners
Sirorata only within Hunjara
Ömie, Asisi, Hunjara Ilimo
Biage, upper Kumusi, Orokaiva ?
Sauni Kaina Ke, Orokaiva, Sirima
Kaina Ke Waju
Hunjara, Kaina Ke, coast none
Sengi ?
? Perive
Sirima, Biage Orokaiva, coast
Kokoda Sirima
? Amada
Sirima, Biage coast
Most of the Hunjara villages reported that they fought with Orokaiva in the past. Several Hunjara villages also reported that they used to fight with Kaina Ke.
Kaina Ke villages most commonly reported that they fought with Sirima, which is part of the Fuyug language area. Several villages reported that the Sirima and Biage people used to live where the Kaina
Ke people do now, but the Kaina Ke people chased them off. For both Hunjara and Kaina Ke, there are some reports of traditionally trading with coastal people.
7 Language and dialect boundaries
One goal of the survey was to identify whether Hunjara and Kaina Ke are dialects of Orokaiva or separate languages, and also whether Hunjara and Kaina Ke are dialects of the same language or
separate languages. In addition to eliciting wordlists, the survey team also conducted group interviews to investigate language distinctions, self-perceptions and reported comprehension. The team recorded an
RTT text in Hunjara which was tested in Kaina for a more direct measure of comprehension.
The minimum criterion that two speech forms should meet to be called the same language according to SIL 1991 is a lexical similarity of 70 percent at the upper confidence limit and
intelligibility of at least 75 percent. Gordon 2005 applies other criteria in defining whether two varieties belong to the same language: there is inherent intelligibility between the two varieties or there
is a common literature or shared ethnolinguistic identity with a central variety.
For this survey, various factors were taken into account when determining whether similar speech varieties belong to the same language: they share at least 70 percent lexical similarity with a central
dialect, there is high reported comprehension of a central dialect, people average at least 75 percent on an RTT test of a simple narrative and there is a shared ethnolinguistic identity with the central dialect.
7.1 Characteristics of the language
7.1.1 Phonology
7.1.1.1 Consonants
The following consonant phones were recorded during wordlist elicitation sessions.
Table 22. Hunjara consonant chart Bilabial
Labio- Dental
Dental Alveolar
Palatal- alveolar
Velar Glottal
Plosive b p
d̪ t̪ d t
ɡ k kʰ ʔ
Affricate dz
d ʒ
Fricative β
v f z s
h Nasal
m n̪
n ŋ
Flap ɾ
Trill r
Approx w
j Table 23. Kaina Ke consonant chart
Bilabial Labio-
Dental Inter
Dental Alveolar
Palatal- alveolar
Velar Glottal
Plosive b p
t̪ d t
ɡ k ʔ
Affricate dz
d ʒ
Fricative β
v f θ
z s h
Nasal m
n ŋ
Flap ɾ
Trill r
Approx w
j According to the worksheet completed for the Alphabet Design Workshop in 2004, voiced plosives
occur in both Hunjara and Kaina Ke, though they only occur word medially and prenasalised in Kaina Ke. The team found this to be true as well. The glottal plosive [
ʔ] occurs in only a few words in both Hunjara and Kaina Ke, either preceding a vowel at the beginning of a word or between two
homogeneous vowels. Alveolar and palatal-alveolar affricates, [dz] and [d ʒ] respectively, seem to be
somewhat interchangeable depending on the speaker, along with the palatal approximant [j] and the voiced alveolar fricative [z]. The voiced bilabial fricative [β] and the voiced labiodental fricative [v] are
also somewhat interchangeable, though speakers tend to use [β] more often. The voiceless interdental fricative [θ] occurs only in Kaina Ke. The velar nasal [ŋ] is always followed by a voiced velar plosive
[ ɡ], which is evidence that it is actually prenasalisation. The voiced alveolar trill [r] only occurs in a
couple cases at the beginning of the word. It is likely to be an allophone of the voiced alveolar flap [ ɾ]
that sometimes occurs word initially. In some words, Retsema transcribed a voiceless glottal fricative [h] followed by a voiced alveolar flap [
ɾ] in Hunjara. This is what is referred to as a “breathy alveolar flap” in the worksheet from the Alphabet Design Workshop. It may be a voiceless alveolar flap [
ɾ̥]. The labiovelar approximant [w] only occurs in a few cases as well. It is likely the same as the back close
rounded vowel [u]. 7.1.1.2
Vowels The following vowel phones were recorded during wordlist elicitation sessions.
Table 24. Hunjara and Kaina Ke vowel chart Front
Central Back
Close i
u Close-mid
Mid e
o Open-mid
ɛ Open
a It seems likely all the vowels are individual phonemes. The two in question may be the front mid
and front open-mid unrounded vowels, [e] and [ ɛ], respectively. The worksheet from the Alphabet
Design Workshop says that most Hunjara vowels are short, though some are long. A minimal pair is given as an example: pe ‘mouth’, which is short, and pee ‘daughter-in-law’, which is long. Most likely,
these two words are [p ɛ] and [pe].
Nasalisation was also transcribed, but only with the front close unround vowel [i] in Kaina Ke and the open unrounded vowel in both Kaina Ke and Hunjara. It is possible that other vowels, which were
actually nasalized, were not correctly transcribed. No minimal pairs were recorded to verify that nasalisation is contrastive in Hunjara and Kaina. According to the worksheet from the Alphabet Design
Workshop, both Hunjara and Kaina have both nasalised and nonnasalised vowels.
Stress
Stress typically falls on the penultimate syllable in Hunjara and Kaina Ke.
Current trial orthography
The Hunjara orthography, as developed in the Alphabet Design Workshop ADW in 2004, is: |a b d e f ɡ
h hr i j k m n o p r s t u v ã ẽ ĩ õ ũ|. The alphabet proposed for Kaina Ke in the same workshop was |a e f h i j k m mb n nd n
ɡ ns o p r s t th u v ä ë ï ö ü|. The difference between the two is that Hunjara has |hr| and voiced plosives represented by |b|, |d| and |g|, whereas Kaina Ke does not have those, but does have
|mb|, |nd|, |ng| and |ns| as well as the voiceless interdental fricative, represented by |th| as in English. Also, Hunjara chose to represent nasalised vowels with the tilde over the vowel e.g., |ã| whereas Kaina
Ke chose the dieresis over the vowel e.g., | ä|. When talking to elementary school teachers, most did not
initially include the double letters and nasalised vowels when talking about the alphabet they were teaching in the classroom. When the surveyor asked about the extra letters, some teachers reported using
some double letters and some nasalised vowels. None reported using the exact trial alphabets produced at the ADW.
7.1.2 Grammar