| Berik | |
| States: | Indonesia |
| Region: | Tor Atas district, Sarmi Regency |
| Speakers: | 1,200 |
| Date: | 1994 |
| Ref: | e25 |
| Familycolor: | Papuan |
| Fam1: | Foja Range (Tor–Kwerba) |
| Fam2: | Orya–Tor |
| Fam3: | Tor |
| Fam4: | Berik–Bonerif |
| Script: | Latin |
| Iso3: | bkl |
| Glotto: | beri1254 |
| Glottorefname: | Berik |
Berik is a Papuan language spoken in eastern Papua. Speakers are located in four village groups on the Tor River towards the northern coast of Indonesian-controlled Irian Jaya.[1]
US linguist John McWhorter cited Berik as an example of a language which puts concepts "together in ways more fascinatingly different from English than most of us are aware".[2] Illustrating this, in the phrase Kitobana (meaning "[he] gives three large objects to a male in the sunlight"), affixes indicating time of day, object number, object size, and gender of recipient are added to the verb.[2] [3] [4]
In Tor Atas District, Berik is spoken in Beu, Bora Bora, Dangken, Doronta, Kondirjan, Safrontani, Sewan, Somanente, Taminambor, Tenwer, Togonfo, and Waf villages.
| Labial | Alveolar | (Alveolo-) palatal | Velar | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m pronounced as /link/ | n pronounced as /link/ | ng pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Plosive &<br />affricate | p pronounced as /link/ | t pronounced as /link/ | k pronounced as /link/ | |||
| b pronounced as /link/ | d pronounced as /link/ | j pronounced as /link/ | g pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Fricative | f pronounced as /link/ | s pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Approximant | l pronounced as /link/ | y pronounced as /link/ | w pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Tap | r pronounced as /link/ | |||||
Berik has the common six vowel system (/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, and /u/ plus /ə/).[5]
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i pronounced as /link/ | u pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Mid | e pronounced as /link/ | ə pronounced as /link/ | o pronounced as /link/ | |
| Open | a pronounced as /link/ |
Westrum (1988:150) briefly indicates that Berik encodes whether the action takes place during the day (diurnal) or during the night (nocturnal) in the verb morphology, a rare case of periodic tense whose markers are not easily segmentable.[6]
| Period | Present | Past | Future | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Diurnal | gulbana | gulbanant | gulbafa | |
| Nocturnal | gulbasa | gulbafant | gubafa |