Doromu language


Doromu, or Doromu-Koki, is a Manubaran language spoken in the "Bird's Tail" of Papua New Guinea. Doromu has about 1,500 native speakers with half of them living in the capital, Port Moresby. It has three varieties: Koki, Kokila and Koriko.

Phonology

Doromu has 17 phonemes: 12 are consonants and 5 are vowels.

Consonants

Below is a chart of Doromu consonants.
LabialCoronalVelar
Stop
Nasal
Fricative
Tap
Approximant

Vowels

Below is a chart of Doromu vowels.
FrontBack
High
Mid
Low

Orthography

From March 18 to March 25 of 2002 in Kasonomu village the current orthography was developed during the Doromu Alphabet Design Workshop. The orthography developed from this workshop were discussed with various areas in the language group and were agreed upon. One problem was how borrowed words with letters not contained in the Doromu orthography would be dealt with. The proposed solution from the native speakers was to spell the loan words as they are spelled in their original language.
Uppercase lettersABDEFGIKMNORSTUVY
Lowercase lettersabdefgikmnorstuvy
IPA

Verbs

In Doromu verbs may have suffixes, which affect tense, aspect, mood, or switch reference.

Tense affixes

Past Tense
Present Tense
Past Tense
Below is a table of the names of different colors in Doromu.
DoromuEnglish
blublue
borayellow, orange
braunbrown
feowhite
gabublack, blue, brown
kakared, purple
vegugreen

The words 'blu' and 'braun' are borrowed from another language. The word 'kaka' can also mean ripe. While 'vegu' is also a noun which means 'life'. 'Kamaidaforo' is the word meaning 'colorful, attractive, glittery, sparkling'.

Numbers

EnglishDoromuLiteral Meaning
oneyokoi
tworemanu
threeregode
fourvana rarohand line
fivevana berou autuhand side empty
sixvana berou autu yokoi makahand side empty one only
sevenvana berou autu remanuhand side empty two
eightvana berou autu regodehand side empty three
ninevana berou autu vana rarohand side empty hand line
tenvana ufohand clap