Nalik language

Austronesian language spoken in Papua New Guinea

The Nalik language is spoken by 5,000 or so people, based in 17 villages in Kavieng District, New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. It is an Austronesian language and member of the New Ireland group of languages with a subject–verb–object (SVO) phrase structure. New Ireland languages are among the first Papua New Guinea languages recorded by Westerners. Laxudumau, spoken in the village of Lakudumau, is transitional to Kara, but is not intelligible to speakers of Nalik.

Speakers of Nalik reside in a series of villages in northern central New Ireland. The Nalik speaking region is an approximately long band of the island that spans approximately wide and is flanked on its north by the Kara speaking region and to its south by speakers of Kuot, the only non Austronesian language on New Ireland.

Nouns in Nalik are categorized as being uncountable or countable nouns. Nouns can be part of a noun phrase or can be an independent subject referenced in a verbal complex. When used as subjects, some uncountable nouns are co referential with plural subject markers; however, those are the exceptions and are usually marked with singular subject markers. With uncountable nouns, numerical markers cannot be used. Countable nouns, however, can be singular or plural and can be modified by numerical markers.

The Nalik language features an SVO sentence structure that is common to the languages of the New Ireland–Tolai languages. +Example sentencesTranslationA nalik ka lis a baxot sin a das naThe boy is giving/sending the money to his brotherKa lis sin a das na. He's giving/sending (it) to his brother. A nalik ka na lis a baxot sin a das na l a fotnait l a xor. The boy will give some money to his brother next payday.