| Wiru | |
|---|---|
| Witu | |
| Native to | Papua New Guinea |
| Region | Ialibu-Pangia District, Southern Highlands Province |
| Ethnicity | Wiru |
Native speakers | (15,300 cited 1967, repeated 1981)[1] |
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | wiu |
| Glottolog | wiru1244 |
| ELP | Wiru |
 Map: The Wiru language of New Guinea
The Wiru language
Trans–New Guinea languages
Other Papuan languages
Austronesian languages
Uninhabited | |
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 Kerr's work with the community produced a Wiru Bible translation and several unpublished dictionary manuscripts,[3] as well as Kerr's Master's thesis on the structure of Wiru verbs.[4]
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.
- ^ Wiru at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ New Guinea World, Tua River
- ^ Kerr, Harland (13 March 2014). "Witumo Wituda Database". Retrieved 2022-02-21.
- ^ Kerr, Harland (1967). A preliminary statement of Witu grammar: The syntactic role and structure of the verb (PDF) (MA). University of Hawaiʻi.