Motu

E146924

Motu is an Austronesian language of Papua New Guinea, best known as the basis for the regional lingua franca Hiri Motu used around Port Moresby and the southern coastal areas.

All labels observed (2)

Label Occurrences
Motu canonical 5
Police Motu 1

How this entity was disambiguated

Statements (43)

Predicate Object
instanceOf Austronesian language
language
associatedWithCity Port Moresby
closelyRelatedTo Hula language
Keapara language
Sinaugoro language
country Papua New Guinea
hasAlternativeName Motu proper
Pure Motu
hasBasicWordOrder SVO
hasDialects Hiri Motu
surface form: Central Motu

Hiri Motu
surface form: East Motu

Hiri Motu
surface form: West Motu
hasGlottocode motu1246
hasGlottologName Motu self-link
hasHistoricalRole source language for regional lingua franca
hasISO639-3Code meu
hasLinguisticArea Papuan Tip area
hasMorphologicalType moderately agglutinative
hasNeighboringLanguages English (Papua New Guinea)
Tok Pisin
hasNumberOfSpeakers tens of thousands of speakers
hasPhonologicalFeature relatively small consonant inventory
simple vowel system
hasStatus indigenous language of Papua New Guinea
hasUsage home and community language
hasWritingSystem Latin alphabet
surface form: Latin script
influenced Hiri Motu
isBasisFor Hiri Motu
isDistinctFrom Hiri Motu
languageBranch Oceanic languages
languageFamily Austronesian languages
languageGroup Central Papuan Tip language
surface form: Central Papuan Tip languages
region Central Province, Papua New Guinea
National Capital District, Papua New Guinea
spokenIn Papua New Guinea
Port Moresby
surface form: Port Moresby region

southern coastal areas of Papua New Guinea
subclassOf Central Papuan Tip language
Oceanic language
usedAs local language around Port Moresby
usedByEthnicGroup Motu people
usedFor traditional trade along the Papuan coast

How these facts were elicited

Referenced by (6)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Hiri Motu alternativeName Motu
this entity surface form: Police Motu
Motu hasGlottologName Motu self-link