| Mehek | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Papua New Guinea |
| Region | Sandaun Province |
Native speakers | (6,300 cited 1994)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | nux |
| Glottolog | mehe1243 |
| ELP | Mehek |
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.