[PapuanLanguages] Languages named "No"

[Christian Döhler]

 Thanks everybody for contributing information on language names to this
post. I enjoy reading this a lot. I would like to add a further
description and question to this. 

Over the past years, I have been working on Komnzo, a language of the
Tonda subgroup of the Yam languages (Morehead-Upper-Maro group). The
word _komnzo_ means `just, only, still' in the sense of _komnzo käms!
_`Just sit down' (a mother to her child) or _komnzo ymarwé _`I can still
see him' (before he disappears in the distance). A common phrase used as
a language name is _komnzo zokwasi _which literally means `only
language' or `just words'. My personal explanation is that this is reply
to some patrol officer's question: `What language do you speak?'. It is
unclear who first started using this term, but it appears in the 1950's
in reports. While it is very common to identify speech varieties by
either places names (Komnzo = Rouku's language) or some other ethnonym
(Komnzo = the language of the `Farem tribe'), the word _komnzo_ is used
nowadays as a proper name by the speakers for the language (in addition
to its meaning above). In other words: the phrase _komnzo zokwasi_ means
both `just words' and `Komnzo language'. The situation holds for a
number of other varieties of the Tonda subgroup: Wára, Anta, Wèré, Kémä,
Kánchá, Blafe (but not for Wartha Thuntai, Ránmo and Arammba). 

I am wondering, if anyone knows of other examples for this naming
pattern (based on `ONLY language')??

Best,
Christian

A side comment on the languages of the Nambu subgroup: The varieties of
this subgroup are named after the word meaning `what', for example:
Nama, Nambo and Nen. This naming pattern is originates in a myth in
which the apical ancestor frees people from a tree trunk. Each group
that emerges from the tree asks the question `What is it?' and thereby
identifies itself as belonging to some particular piece of land.

---
Christian Döhler

Department of Linguistics

School of Culture, History & Language

College of Asia & the Pacific
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200

http://people.anu.edu.au/christian.doehler
 [2]http://dobes.mpi.nl/projects/morehead [3]

Am 27.02.2016 18:12 schrieb Edgar Suter: 

> For the Kâte people there were two systems of talking about one's neighbors. One was geographical and classified people according to their habitat: Hâwec 'sea', Mape 'Mape River', Kâte 'forest', Sopâc 'grassland'. The other referred to their speech. These terms can be combined with the noun dâng 'sound, words, language', hence Wemo dâng (what), Wamorâ dâng (why), Bamotâ dâng (why), Momare dâng (why), Mâgobineng dâng (they say), Migabac dâng (I say), Dedua dâng (he says). Note that Bamotâ (why) and Mâgobineng (they say) refer to the same language. Interestingly, Bamotâ shows an irregular phonological development, we would have expected initial /w/ rather than /b/. Is this language engineering, changing the word used to classify neighboring languages in order to make oneself different? I have also heard the geographical terms being used to refer to languages, thus Hâwec dâng can refer to the Jabêm language. 
> 
> Edgar
> 
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