# Wiru language

Wiru or Witu is the language spoken by the Wiru people of Ialibu-Pangia District of the Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. The language has been described by Harland Kerr, a missionary who lived in the Wiru community for many years. Kerr's work with the community produced a Wiru Bible translation and several unpublished dictionary manuscripts, as well as Kerr's Master's thesis on the structure of Wiru verbs.
There are a considerable number of resemblances with the Engan languages, suggesting Wiru might be a member of that family, but language contact has not been ruled out as the reason. Usher classifies it with the Teberan languages.

## Phonology
### Consonants

| | | Labial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar |
| Nasal | Nasal | m | n | | | |
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | | | k |
| Plosive | prenasal | ᵐb | ⁿd | | | ᵑɡ |
| Liquid | Liquid | | (ɾ) | ɭ | | |
| Approximant | Approximant | w | | | j | |
* /p, t, k/ can be heard as aspirated [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ] in word-initial position and can also be heard with slight friction and voicing, in word-medial positions.
* /t/ can be heard as [d] when preceded by /i/ and followed by /a/ or /o/. It is heard as [ɾ] in all other intervocalic environments.

### Vowels

| | Front | Central | Back |
| Close | i | | u |
| Mid | e | | o |
| Open | | a | |

## Pronouns

Trans–New Guinea–like pronouns are no 1sg (< *na) and ki-wi 2pl, ki-ta 2du (< *ki).

## Vocabulary

The following basic vocabulary words are from Franklin (1973, 1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:
| gloss | Wiru |
| head | tobou |
| hair | pine; píne |
| ear | kabidi |
| eye | lene |
| nose | timini |
| tooth | kime |
| tongue | keke; keké |
| leg | kawa |
| louse | nomo; nomò |
| dog | tue |
| pig | kaì |
| bird | ini; inì |
| egg | mu̧ |
| blood | kamate |
| bone | tono |
| skin | kepene |
| breast | adu |
| tree | yomo; yomò |
| man | ali |
| woman | atoa; atòa |
| sun | lou; loú |
| moon | tokene |
| water | ue; uè |
| fire | toe |
| stone | kue; kué |
| name | ibini; ibíni |
| eat | nakò; one ne nako |
| one | odene |
| two | takuta; ta kutà |

## Syntax

Wiru has a general noun-modifying clause construction. In this construction, a noun can be modified by a clause that immediately precedes it. The noun may, but need not, correspond to an argument of the modifying clause. Such constructions can be used to express a wide range of semantic relationships between clause and noun. The follow examples all use the same noun-modifying clause construction:
[No
1SG
ka-k-u]
stay-PRS-1SG
tono
mountain
tubea.
big
[No ka-k-u] tono tubea.
1SG stay-PRS-1SG mountain big
'The mountain I am on top of is big.'
[Kia-nea
be.red-INF
karo
car
pi-k-i]
lie-PRS-2/3PL
ail-aroa
man-woman
eida
there
piri-ki-ya.
lie-PRS-2/3PL-HAB
[Kia-nea karo pi-k-i] ail-aroa eida piri-ki-ya.
be.red-INF car lie-PRS-2/3PL man-woman there lie-PRS-2/3PL-HAB
'The people who own red cars live there.'
[Kenbra
Canberra
namolo
first
no-k-o]
come-PST-1PL
ko
story
ou.
say.1SG.FUT
[Kenbra namolo no-k-o] ko ou.
Canberra first come-PST-1PL story say.1SG.FUT
'I'll tell the story about the first time we came to Canberra.'
[Toro
1PL
pea
all
skul
school
ke
LOC
poa-rok-o]
go-OPT-1PL
oi
time
no-ka-l-e...
come-PST-DS-2/3PL...
[Toro pea skul ke poa-rok-o] oi no-ka-l-e...
1PL all school LOC go-OPT-1PL time come-PST-DS-2/3PL...
'The time for all of us to go to school arrived...'
The noun-modifying clause construction imposes a falling tone on the head noun. That is, no matter what the lexical tone of the noun that is being modified is, it takes on a high-low tone pattern when it is modified in a noun-modifying clause construction.

## Evolution

Wiru reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are:
* ibi(ni) ‘name’ < *imbi
* nomo ‘louse’ < *niman
* laga ‘ashes’ < *la(ŋg,k)a
* tokene ‘moon’ < *takVn[V]
* mane ‘instructions, incantations’ < *mana
* keda ‘heavy’ < *ke(nd,n)a
* mo- ‘negative prefix’ < *ma-