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'Purari is a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea. It is also known as Koriki, Evorra, I'ai,Maipua and Namau. Namau is a colonial term which means "deaf (lit.), inattentive, or stupid (Williams 1924: 4)." Today people of the Purari Delta find this term offensive. F.E. Williams reports that the "[a]n interpreter suggests that by some misunderstanding the name had its origin in the despair of an early missionary, who, finding the natives turned a deaf ear to his teaching, dubbed them all 'Namau'." (Williams 1924: 4). Koriki, I'ai, and Maipua refer to self-defining groups that make up the six groups that today compose the people who speak Purari. Along with the Baroi (formerly known as the Evorra, which was the name of a village site), Kaimari and the Vaimuru, these groups speak mutually intelligible dialects of Purari.
[edit] References
- Holmes, J. H. (Jan.–June 1913). "A Preliminary Study of the Namau Language, Purari Delta, Papua". The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 43: 124–142. doi:10.2307/2843165.
- Williams, F.E. (1924). The natives of the Purari Delta.. Port Moresby: Government Printer..
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