# Rotokas language

Rotokas is a North Bougainville language spoken by about 4,320 people on Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea.
Central Rotokas is most notable for its extremely small phonemic consonantal inventory, lacking phonemic nasals, and for having perhaps the smallest modern alphabet.

## Dialects

According to Allen and Hurd (1963), there are three identified dialects: Central Rotokas ("Rotokas Proper"), Aita Rotokas, and Pipipaia; with a further dialect spoken in Atsilima (Atsinima) village with an unclear status.

## Phonology

The Central dialect of Rotokas possesses one of the world's smallest phonemic consonantal inventories.$^{:271}$ Central Rotokas has a vowel length distinction between long and short,$^{:273}$ but otherwise lacks distinctive suprasegmental features such as tone, and probably stress.

### Consonants

Whereas Central Rotokas has only six consonantal phonemes, Aita Rotokas has nine; Aita adds phonemic nasals (e.g. this example of a minimal pair, /buta/ 'time' vs. /muta/ 'taste'$^{:208}$). The Central dialect's limited inventory likely arose by collapsing the phonemic distinction between nasals and non-nasals.$^{:206}$
Nasals in Aita always correspond to voiced plosives in Central (e.g. "tree" is emaoto in Aita and ebaoto in Central$^{:208}$), but voiced plosives in Central can correspond to either nasals or voiced plosives in Aita.$^{:207}$

#### Central Rotokas

Consonants occur in three places of articulation: bilabial, alveolar, and velar, each with a voiced and an unvoiced variant.$^{:207}$ The three voiced phonemes each have wide allophonic variation, with the allophonic sets [β, b, m], [ɾ, n, l, d], and [ɡ, ɣ, ŋ].$^{:274}$ This makes the choice of symbols for phonemes somewhat arbitrary.$^{:207}$
Nasals are rarely heard. They will sometimes be misused when speakers try to pronounce English words (e.g. "bye-bye" being pronounced [maemae]), or when trying to imitate a foreigner speaking Rotokas (even if they were not used by the foreigner).$^{:274}$
Central Rotokas :
| | Bilabial | Alveolar | Velar |
| Voiceless | p | t | k |
| Voiced | b | d | ɡ |
* In the 1960s, /t/ was described as being [ts]~[s] before /i/.$^{:274}$ Later research in the 2000s found this to no longer be true, possibly due to widespread bilingualism with Tok Pisin.$^{:207}$

#### Aita Rotokas

The Aita dialect has nine consonant phonemes, with a three-way distinction required between voiced, voiceless, and nasal consonants.$^{:207}$
Aita Rotokas :
| | Bilabial | Alveolar | Velar |
| Voiceless | p | t | k |
| Voiced, oral | b | d | ɡ |
| Voiced, nasal | m | n | ŋ |
* /b/ varies between [b] and [β].$^{:207}$
* /d/ is chiefly realized as [ɾ].$^{:207}$
* /t/ is [s] before /i/.$^{:207}$

### Vowels

Vowels in the Central dialect may be long or short, but the Aita dialect seems to have no length distinction.$^{:209}$
| | Front | Central | Back |
| Close | i (iː) | | u (uː) |
| Close-mid | e (eː) | | o (oː) |
| Open | | a (aː) | |

### Orthography

The Rotokas orthography uses 12 letters of the Latin alphabet, with no diacritics or ligatures. The letters are a, e, g, i, k, o, p, r, s, t, u and v. Long vowels are written as doubled. /t/ is written as 
 before /i/, but <t> elsewhere.
Rotokas has also been written with an orthography based on the IPA symbols for its phonemes.$^{:207}$

### Stress

Stress is probably not phonemic. Words with 2 or 3 syllables are stressed on the initial syllable; those with 4 are stressed on the first and third; and those with 5 or more on the antepenultimate. This is complicated by long vowels, and there are exceptions to the third rule among some verb constructions.

## Grammar

Typologically, Rotokas is a fairly typical verb-final language, with adjectives and demonstrative pronouns preceding the nouns they modify, and postpositions following. Although adverbs are fairly free in their ordering, they tend to precede the verb, as in the following example:
osirei-toarei
eye-MASC.DU
avuka-va
old-FEM.SG
iava
POST
ururupa-vira
closed-ADV
tou-pa-si-veira
be-PROG-2.DU.MASC-HAB
osirei-toarei avuka-va iava ururupa-vira tou-pa-si-veira
eye-MASC.DU old-FEM.SG POST closed-ADV be-PROG-2.DU.MASC-HAB
The old woman's eyes are shut.

## Vocabulary

Selected basic vocabulary items in Rotokas:
    glossRotokas birdkokioto bloodrevasiva bonekerua breastrorooua earuvareoua eataio eggtakura eyeosireito firetuitui givevate goava groundrasito hairorui hearuvu legkokotoa louseiirui manoidato moonkekira namevaisia onekatai road, pathraiva seekeke skyvuvuiua stoneaveke sunravireo tonguearevuoto toothreuri treeevaova twoerao wateruukoa womanavuo

## Sample text

| No. | Rotokas | Translation (English) |
| 2 | Vo tuariri rovoaia Pauto vuvuiua ora rasito pura-rovoreva. Vo osia rasito raga toureva, uva viapau oavu avuvai. Oire Pauto urauraaro tuepaepa aue ivaraia uukovi. Vara rutuia rupa toupaiva. Oa iava Pauto oisio puraroepa, Aviavia rorove. Oire aviavia rorova. | In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep water. The spirit of God was hovering over the water. Then God said, "Let there be light!" So there was light. |

## Footnotes

* ↑ Rotokas at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
* ↑ "Rotokas". Retrieved 22 October 2018.
* ↑ Allen and Hurd, 1963. Cited in Robinson (2006, p. 206): "it appears to be heavily influenced by contact with Keriaka"
* 1 2 3 4 5 "An abbreviated phoneme inventory | Languages of Papua New Guinea". pnglanguages.sil.org. Retrieved 2025-02-24.
* 1 2 "Organised Phonology Data" (PDF). p. 3.
* 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 "The Phoneme Inventory of the Aita Dialect of Rotokas". ResearchGate. Archived from the original on 2023-03-23. Retrieved 2025-02-24.
* ↑ "Organised Phonology Data" (PDF).
* ↑ Firchow, Irwin B.; Firchow, Jacqueline; Akoitai, David (1973). Vocabulary of Rotokas--Pidgin--English. The Long Now Foundation. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
* ↑ Firchow & Firchow (2008)
* ↑ Jenesis (Rotokas Genesis Translation). The Long Now Foundation. Summer Institute of Linguistics.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)