Working on some background for Junction, in which a wormhole in New Guinea leads to an alien planet. Of course, there are people living around the wormhole on both ends, called the Nun (nearside) and Ern (farside).
The Nun are based off of real-world Mek peoples (specifically the Ketengban of eastern West Papua). Here’s some information about their language.
Nun language (related to the Mek languages of eastern West Papua, specifically Ketenbang)
Phonology
/i e a o u/
/pw t ty k, b d g, m n ng/ /v f s//r//l y/
Sample name: “Tyaney”
Syllable formation is Vowel or Consonant-Vowel, with Consonant-Vowel-Consonant possible at the end of words.
Vocabulary
Puk – to do
Eib- to see
Bal– to cut off
Uam – pig
Yo – tree
Dung – worm
Im – sky
Mik – night, dark
E – village
Sokok – country, zone
Bou – wind
Deibukna – death
Tokwe – earth, ground, soil
Yali – the world-pillar that was destroyed.
Ousa – taboo, crime
Kubilon – untamed animal, barbarian
sam – (postposition) within, under the surface of
dub – (postposition) on, over
Grammar
Left-headed. Adjectives follow the noun they modify.
Dung Yali – The Rainbow Worm (lit. Worm World-Pillar)
Sentence structure is Subject Verb Object by default, although there is considerable flexibility.
Dung eib – One sees a worm
Generally isolating language, but exhibits an elaborate system of agglutination in verb formation: stem – (negation) – (tense/aspect markers) – (object pronouns) – tense/person markers – (enclitics))
(Nu) dung eib-mu-lem-i-ni-p I have not been seeing many worms. (lit. (I) worm see-neg-imperf-them-I-past)
“Ern” language (related to Nun-Mek)
Phonology
/i e a o u/
/p t k, b d g, m n ng//s//l y/
sample name: “Sing”
This will probably change as I continue my research
See also:
Sela Valley: an Ethnology of a Mek Societyby Jan A. Godschalk
Selected Topics in the Grammar of Nalca by Eric Svärd
UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2012)
The TransNewGuinea.org pages on Eipomek, Nalca, Ketenbang, Korapun-Sela,Yale-Korasek, and Una