Tehit is a Papuan language of the Bird's Head Peninsula of New Guinea. Other spellings are Tahit, Tehid, and other names Kaibus, Teminabuan. Dialects are Tehit Jit, Mbol Fle, Saifi, Imyan, Sfa Riere, Fkar, Sawiat Salmeit.
Tehit | |
---|---|
Kaibus | |
Native to | Indonesia |
Region | Papua |
Native speakers | 10,000 (2000)[1] 500 monolinguals (2000)[1] |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | kps |
Glottolog | tehi1237 |
Tehit Tehit | |
Coordinates: 1°31′S 131°59′E / 1.51°S 131.99°E |
Major Tehit ethnic subgroups:[2]
Locations of some Tehit subgroups:[2]
Tehit clans:[2]
Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | plain | p b | t d | ɡ | q | ||
prenasal | ᵐp ᵐb | ⁿt ⁿd | ᵑɡ | ᶰq | |||
Fricative | ɸ | s | h | ||||
Nasal | m | n | |||||
Tap | ɾ | ||||||
Approximant | (w) | l | (j) |
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
High | i | ||
Mid | e | (ə) | o |
Low | a |
Tehit has four grammatical genders, which are masculine, feminine, plural, and neuter. Examples:[6]
gender | suffix | examples |
---|---|---|
masculine | -w | ndla-w ‘husband’, sna-w ‘moon’, qliik-w ‘snake’ |
feminine | -m | -ene-m ‘mother’, tali-m ‘sun’, mbol-m ‘house’ |
plural | -y | sinas-y ‘small mosquito’, sinaq-y ‘gravel’, siray ‘salt’ |
neuter | zero | n/a |
Gender prefixes in Tehit can not only be used to denote gender, but also size, wholeness, and the stability of appearances. Masculine gender is associated with small size, parts of wholes, and changing appearances, while feminine gender is associated with large size, wholeness, and stable appearances. Examples (from Flassy 1991: 10–12):
feminine | masculine | |
---|---|---|
wet ‘child’ | wet-m child-3F ‘girl’ |
wet-w child-3M ‘boy’ |
e’ren ‘fish’ | e’ren-m fish-3F ‘big fish’ |
e’ren-w fish-3M ‘small fish’ |
mbol ‘house’ | mbol-y house-3PL ‘houses’ |
mbol-w house-3M ‘small house’ / ‘houses’ |
sika ‘cat’ | sika-w cat-3M ‘male cat’ / ‘cats’ |
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