Mehek language

Mehek
Native toPapua New Guinea
RegionSandaun Province
Native speakers
(6,300 cited 1994)[1]
Sepik
Language codes
ISO 639-3nux
Glottologmehe1243
ELPMehek

Mehek is a Tama language spoken by about 6300 people in a somewhat mountainous area along the southern base of the Torricelli Mountains in northwestern Papua New Guinea. Mehek is spoken in six villages of Sandaun Province: Nuku, Yiminum, Mansuku, Yifkindu, Wilwil, and Kafle.[2] Mehek is most closely related to Pahi, with 51% lexical similarity, and spoken approximately 20 kilometers to the southwest. Mehek is a fairly typical Papuan language, being verb-final, having a relatively simple phonology, and agglutinative morphology. There is very little published information about Mehek. The literacy rate in Tok Pisin, spoken by nearly everyone, is 50-75%. Mehek is not written, so there is no literacy in Mehek. Tok Pisin is primarily used in the schools, with 50% children attending.[3] There is also a sign language used by the large number of deaf people in the Mehek community.

  1. ^ Mehek at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ Laycock, D.C. (1968)
  3. ^ Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (2009)