Yalë language
The Yalë language, also known as Nagatman, is spoken in northwestern Papua New Guinea. It may be related to the Kwomtari languages, but Palmer classifies it as a language isolate.
There were 600 speakers in 1991 and 30 monolinguals at an unrecorded date. Yalë is spoken in Nagatiman and several other villages of Green River Rural LLG in Sandaun Province. Foley reports a total of six villages.
Yalë is in extensive trade and contact with Busa, a likely language isolate spoken just to the south. Yalë has complex verbal inflection and SOV word order.Pronouns are:Grammar
Verbal conjugation affixes are:
- -d: generic marker
- -t: transitive marker
- -b: intransitive marker
Most nouns are not pluralized, and only nouns with human or animate reference or with high local salience may be pluralized using the suffix -rɛ ~ -re:
- nɛba-re /child-PL/ ‘children’
- ama-re /dog-PL/ ‘dogs’
- dife-rɛ /village-PL/ ‘villages’
Other plural nouns are irregular:
- aya-nino /father-PL/ ‘fathers’
- mise ‘woman’, one ‘women’
