| Nen | |
|---|---|
| Region | Western Province (Papua New Guinea) |
Native speakers | 350 (2018)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | nqn |
| Glottolog | nenn1238 |
| ELP | Nen |
Nen (or Nen Zi, Nenium, Wekamara) is a Yam language spoken in the Bimadbn village in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea, with 250 speakers as of a 2002 SIL survey. It is situated between the speech communities of Nambu and Idi.
Nen has unusual lexicalization patterns in its verbs. It has very few intransitive verbs, and where some verbs would be intransitive in most other languages, Nen has a class of morphologically "middle" verbs in their place. Many of the few intransitive verbs that Nen does have are positional verbs, which refer to spatial positions and postures.[2]
- ^ Nen at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Evans, Nicholas (2014). "Positional Verbs in Nen". Oceanic Linguistics. 53 (2): 225–255. doi:10.1353/ol.2014.0019. hdl:1885/14019.
