Wamesa, sometimes called Wandamen, is an Austronesian language spoken in West Papua, Indonesia in the south-eastern Bird’s Head peninsula. Wamesa belongs to the South Halmahera-West New Guinea branch of Austronesian. There are roughly 6000 speakers of the language.

Native speakers call their language ‘Wamesa’ and use ‘Wandamen’ to refer to the dialect, spoken around Wandamen Bay (Teluk Wondama) (Gasser 2014). This dictionary focuses on the Windesi dialect of Wamesa, and is based on ongoing fieldwork begun in the summer of 2011.

About The Wamesa Language

Phoneme Inventory

Wamesa uses the following consonants in native vocabulary. Additionally, l [l] and j [dʒ] appear in loan words.

Wamesa has five contrasting vowels: a, i , e, o, u.

Wamesa also allows a range of vowel sequences, including the following dipthongs and tripthongs: au, ai, ei, oi, ui, ia, ie, io, ua, ui, uo, ioi, iau. A selection of these vowel sequences are noted with Wamesa examples in the following table. Vowel sequences never include adjacent non-high vowels, and unstressed i and u often lenite to y and w adjacent to other vowels (Gasser 2014).

Wamesa orthography	IPA symbol	English and Indonesian examples	Wamesa examples
Consonants
P p	p	patpisang	listenloadingplaying pare nipa palm
B b	b	ballbaru	listenloadingplaying baba big
T t	t	startelur	listenloadingplaying tomboro owl
D d	d	dogdatang	listenloadingplaying adia fire
K k	k	skirtkampung	listenloadingplaying makarabat saltwater eel
G g	g	grabgempah	listenloadingplaying wanggar mouse
M m	m	mothermasih	listenloadingplaying mamara clear, white
N n	n	namenanti	listenloadingplaying manau already
Ng ng	ŋ	singertangan	listenloadingplaying nginggisi cricket
V v	β	--	listenloadingplaying vavoru new
S s	s	soupseni	listenloadingplaying masasabu shattered
R r	r	-rumah	listenloadingplaying rau leaf
W w	w	windawan	listenloadingplaying wamar hornbill
Y y	j	yesayam	listenloadingplaying yau I, 1sg pronoun
L l	l	likelilin	listenloadingplaying kalawai fishing spear
J j	dʒ	jumpjelas	listenloadingplaying karanjang basket
Wamesa Vowels
A a	a	popbapak	listenloadingplaying ra go
E e	e	rainlembek	listenloadingplaying re eye
I i	i	peeppilih	listenloadingplaying ari week
O o	o	bonekotor	listenloadingplaying mawo gong
U u	u	rootmulut	listenloadingplaying ru nandau hair
Y y	j	yes	listenloadingplaying yaba house
Some Wamesa Vowel Sequences
iau	iau	meow	listenloadingplaying niau cat
ioi	ioi	re-oil	listenloadingplaying nioi knife
iai	iai		listenloadingplaying ai kiai toe
iou	iou	radio	listenloadingplaying ariou flower
iui	iui		listenloadingplaying viui he/she/it writes

Consonant clusters are allowed in Wamesa but they are limited to homorganic nasal + voiced stop (mb, nd, ngg) consonant + glide, and glide + consonant. Wamesa does not allow complex onsets, so clusters will not occur word initially or finally. Other underlying clusters are simplified in most cases by deleting the first member: /C₁C₂/ → [C₂]. The -- somewhat odd -- exceptions to this rule are clusters ending in v, r, and k, which surface as mb, nd, and ngg, respectively.

Stress

Stress is not predictable in Wamesa, except that, when there is only one morpheme, primary stress must occur in a three syllable window at the end of a stem.

Syntax

Wamesa is an SVO language. Within the noun phrase, the word order is NADQ, or noun - adjective - determiner - quantifier. This is a particularly interesting word order, as it is violation of Greenberg’s Universal 20, and is quite rare cross-linguistically. Like many languages of the region, Wamesa has phrase-final negation.

Determiners

There are three definite determiners in Wamesa: =ne, =pa, and =wa . These mark literal and figurative distance between the speaker and what is being spoken about. These determiners can also denote the level of association the speaker has with the thing or person being spoken about, and as such are used to form the inalienable possessive construction. Determiners are marked for singular vs plural number if there is no numeral present.

=Ne is used for objects that are in very close proximity to the speaker, or that are very familiar to the speaker, or for 1sg inalienable possessors.

ai=ne-i

tree=DET-SG

‘the tree (that’s right here)’

=Pa is used for objects at a middle distance from the speaker. It also denotes third person singular inalienable possession.

nando=pa-si

banana=DET-PL

‘the bananas’

=Wa is used to mark something very far away from the speaker. This determiner is the least common among the definite determiners in Wamesa.

wise=wa-i

mountain=DET-SG

‘The mountain (way over there)’

Verbs

Wamesa verbs conjugate to agree with the subject of the sentence in person, number, and, in the third person plural, animacy. There is an inclusive/exclusive ("us including you" vs."us but not you") distinction in the first person, and both dual (two people), and plural (three or more) numbers. The trial (exactly three) is occasionally used, but the verb conjugates exactly as in the plural. The following chart includes affixes for subject agreement with verbs (Gasser 2014).

		ase	pera	ra
	Prefix	‘to swim’	'to cut’	'to go’
Singular
1sg	/i-/	y-ase	i-pera	i-ra
2sg	/bu-/	bu-ase	p‹u›era	r‹u›a
3sg	/di-/	di-ase	p‹i›era	r‹i›a
Dual
1du incl	/tur-/	tur-ase	tu-pera	tun-da
1du excl	/amur-/	amur-ase	amu-pera	amun-da
2du	/mur-/	mur-ase	mu-pera	mun-da
3du	/sur-/	sur-ase	su-pera	sun-da
Plural
1pl incl	/tat-/	tat-ase	ta-pera	tan-da
1pl excl	/amat/	amat-ase	ama-pera	aman-da
2pl	/met-/	met-ase	me-pera	men-da
3pl.human	/set-/	set-ase	se-pera	sen-da
3pl.nonhum	/si-/	si-ase	si-pera	si-ra

Other verbal affixes mark the essive, applicative, causative, and some aspects; enclitics give directionality and negation. Serial verbs are fairly common in Wamesa; all verbs in a serial construction must show subject agreement.