Melpa language

Melpa (Medlpa, Mbowamb) is a Papuan language spoken by about 130,000 people predominantly in Mount Hagen and the surrounding district of Western Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea.

Melpa
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Mount Hagen District, Western Highlands Province
Native speakers	(130,000 cited 1991)
Language family	Trans–New Guinea Chimbu–Wahgi Hagen Melpa
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	med
Glottolog	melp1238

Melpa is a Pandanus language used during karuka harvest. Melpa has a voiceless velar lateral fricative, written as a double-barred el (Ⱡ, ⱡ). Melpa is notable for its binary counting system. A dictionary of Melpa has been compiled by Stewart, Strathern and Trantow (2011).

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal		m	n̪ ⟨n⟩	n		ŋ ⟨ng⟩
Stop	voiceless	p	t̪ ⟨t⟩	t		k
	prenasalized	ᵐb ⟨mb⟩	ⁿd̪ ⟨nd⟩	ⁿd ⟨nd⟩		ᵑɡ ⟨ng⟩
Rhotic				r~ɾ ⟨r⟩
Lateral			l̪d̪ ⟨ld⟩	l		ʟ~𝼄 ⟨ⱡ⟩
Semivowel		w			j ⟨y⟩

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ ⟨ʉ⟩	u
Near-high	ɪ ⟨i⟩		ʊ ⟨u⟩
Mid	e		o
Low		a

Numeral system

Decimal	Melpa	Interpretation
1	tenda	"one"
2	ragl	"two"
3	ragltika	"two-one"
4	tembokak	"four"
5	pemp ti gul	"one past four"
6	pemp ragl gul	"two past four"
7	pemp ragltika gul	"two-one past four"
8	engakl	"eight"
9	pemp ti pip	"one past eight"
10	pemp ragl pip	"two past eight"

Melpa language in films

Temboka, a dialect of Melpa, is the native language of the Ganiga tribe, who featured prominently in the Highlands Trilogy of documentaries by Robin Anderson and Bob Connolly (First Contact, Joe Leahy's Neighbours, and Black Harvest).

The documentary Ongka's Big Moka also has Melpa dialogue.

External links

• Melpa laterals
• Kay Owens. "The Work of Glendon Lean on the Counting Systems of Papua New Guinea and Oceania", section "The Melpa Counting System". Mathematics Education Research Journal vol. 13 (April 2001), doi:10.1007/BF03217098
• Melpa Phonology