Rotokas is a North Bougainville language spoken by about 4,320 people on Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea.
Central Rotokas is most notable for its extremely small phonemic consonantal inventory, which lacks phonemic nasals.
Dialects
According to Jerry Allen and Conrad Hurd, there are three identified dialects: Central Rotokas ("Rotokas Proper"), Aita Rotokas, and Pipipaia; with a further dialect spoken in Atsilima (Atsinima) village with an unclear status.
Phonology
The Central dialect of Rotokas possesses one of the world's smallest phonemic consonantal inventories. Central Rotokas has a vowel length distinction between long and short,
Consonants
Whereas Central Rotokas has only six consonantal phonemes, Aita Rotokas has nine; Aita adds phonemic nasals (e.g. this example of a minimal pair, vs. ). The Central dialect's limited inventory likely arose by collapsing the phonemic distinction between nasals and non-nasals.
Grammar
Typologically, Rotokas is a fairly typical verb-final language, with adjectives and demonstrative pronouns preceding the nouns they modify, and postpositions following. Although adverbs are fairly free in their ordering, they tend to precede the verb, as in the following example:
Vocabulary
Selected basic vocabulary items in Rotokas:
:{| class="wikitable sortable"
! gloss !! Rotokas
|-
| bird ||
|-
| blood ||
|-
| bone ||
|-
| breast ||
|-
| ear ||
|-
| eat ||
|-
| egg ||
|-
| eye ||
|-
| fire ||
|-
| give ||
|-
| go ||
|-
| ground ||
|-
| hair ||
|-
| hear ||
|-
| leg ||
|-
| louse ||
|-
| man ||
|-
| moon ||
|-
| name ||
|-
| one ||
|-
| road, path ||
|-
| see ||
|-
| sky ||
|-
| stone ||
|-
| sun ||
|-
| tongue ||
|-
| tooth ||
|-
| tree ||
|-
| two ||
|-
| water ||
|-
| woman ||
|}
Sample text
{| class="wikitable"
!No.
!Rotokas
!Translation (English)
|-
!2
|
|In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep water. The spirit of God was hovering over the water. Then God said, "Let there be light!" So there was light.
|}
Footnotes
References
- (Unpublished manuscript)
- (Brief grammatical sketch)