Nagovisi language

Not to be confused with Xibe language.

Nagovisi
Sibe
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Bougainville Province
Native speakers	12,000 (2018)[1]
Language family	South Bougainville Nasioiic Nagovisi
Writing system	Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	nco
Glottolog	sibe1248
ELP	Sibe

Nagovisi, or Sibe, is a South Bougainville language spoken in the mountains of southern Bougainville Province, Papua New Guinea.

Morphology

Nagovisi makes use of noun class suffixes, which are:[2]

Noun class suffix	Noun class semantics	Example (with demonstrative a-)	Gloss of example
-bore	round things, including balls, coins, coconuts, fruit, betelnut, cooking pots, garamut drums	moo a-bore-ka'	‘that coconut’
-mai	dogs, cats, horses, knives, forks, spoons, axes and other tools	moska a-mai-ka'	‘that dog’
-möö	people, birds, fish, small animals, insects, reptiles	kokoree' a-möö-ka'	‘that chicken’
-visi	houses, buildings, canoes, ships, cars	pawa a-visi-ga'	‘that house’
-woro'	pigs, cows	pooro' a-woro-ka'	‘that pig’

External links

• Paradisec has Open Access collections that include Nagovisi materials, including the Arthur Cappell collections (AC1, AC2).

References

1. Nagovisi at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. Stebbins, Tonya; Evans, Bethwyn; Terrill, Angela (2018). "The Papuan languages of Island Melanesia". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 775–894. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.