[Papuanlanguages] 'Eating water' and elsewhere: a summary

[Martin Steer]

"John Roberts" <dr_john_roberts at sil.org> writes:

>> The existence of a single 'ingest/consume' verb was pointed out for
>> the following languages:
>
>
>> Kalam (Kalam-Kobon) - Andy Pawley
>> Yahang (Torricelli) - Colin Filer
>> Ku Waru (East New Guinea Highlands) - Alan Rumsey
>> Duna (Duna-Bogaya) - Lila San Roque
>> Kewa (Engan) - Karl Franklin
>> Orokaiva (Binanderean) - Lise Dobrin
>> Korafe Yegha and Tafota Baruga (Binanderean) - Cindi Farr
>> Arapeshan languages (Torricelli) - Lise Dobrin
>> Biangai (Goilalan) - Ngawae Mitio
>> Alamblak (Sepik Hill) - Les Bruce
>> Koromu (Evapia group, Rai Coast, Madang)- Carol Priestley
>> Awiyakay (Arafundi) - Darja Hoenigman
>
> You can add Amele (Madang) to this list. This language also has a
> single 'ingest/consume' verb. Common uses are to ingest food, water
> and tobacco (to smoke). Its cognate is realized in most of the Mabuso
> languages of Madang Province. An idiomatic expression literally 'to
> consume a woman' means 'to marry a woman'. Amele also has separate
> lexical means of expressing 'to be hungry' and 'to be thirsty'.
>

I presume that most (all?) of these 'consume' verbs (usually) occur
with some kind of specifying nominal, as with 'kaikaim wara'? This is
the case in two Gulf languages:

Rumu (sometimes called Kairi) has a single verb for 'consume; eat,
drink; engage in an activity'. Also used with tobacco (= to smoke). To
'eat a girl' means to have sexual intercourse with her (cf. Amele).
(Rumu data from Petterson's dictionary.)

Porome has a single consume verb, okay for food, drink and tobacco (to
smoke). The verb for 'hit, kill' has the same form.

Porome 'burn' is different, but the word for 'flesh, meat' covers
'edible species; matches; tobacco':

'long-faced meat' = catfish sp.
'coconut meat'
'soap meat' = avocado
'smoke meat' = tobacco
'fire meat' = burning faggot, matches

There is also a word meaning 'devour'. I only know it for sago worms,
'you can hear them devouring the log', and for fire devouring a house.

I have been given a complex verb meaning 'hungry', but speakers seem
not to use it, instead saying 'I need to eat/drink' lit. 'I'm in a bad
way to eat'.

In his paper on eliciting basic vocabulary in NG, Laycock says about
'drink' that it is 'not a concept in many languages' (presum. = eat),
and notes that some languages 'distinguish "eat (meat)" from "eat
(carbohydrates)"'. There is prob. more in his paper on investigating
semantic domains.

Finally, to digress completely, Laycock also notes that 'it is not
unusual for languages in NG to have a single word for [...] hearing,
smelling, and feeling [...] compare Pidgin "harim smell"'. Also Rumu
and Porome, each with a single verb for 'hear, smell'.

--
Martin