Sulka may be described as having ancient Papuan roots, which additionally displays morphosyntactic constructions and some vocabulary items associated with the Oceanic branch of Austronesian. Alternatively, it has been proposed as possibly related to Kol or Baining as part of the East Papuan proposal, but Palmer treats Sulka as a language isolate. Sulka has some influence from the Mengen language. Over 3,000 to 3,500 years ago, Sulka speakers arrived in the Papua New Guinea area.
History
Although the history of the language is not well known, it may display a mixture of Oceanic and Papuan language traits. These are languages Sulka came into contact with, when the peoples speaking these other languages populated the area in neighboring villages, around 3,200 years ago.
Geographic Distribution
Sulka is spoken along the coastal region of Wide Bay, on the Southern coast of the Gazelle Peninsula, on the eastern side of New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea. Some estimate speakers to number as high as between 3,000-3,500. Reesink reports on some Sulka speakers who have intermingled in neighboring villages with speakers of other languages such as Mali, southeast of Kokopo.
Phonology
Consonants
The phonological system of Sulka comprises 28 contrasting segments, fourteen consonants, and seven vowels. On the topic of consonants, there is no recent evidence to support contrast between and , therefore they're assumed to be allophones and are represented in the table of consonants as only. Sulka consonants are:
Vowels
For its vowels, Sulka has a contrast between three front vowels: high, mid, and low, , , and , but there is no instance of the central high vowel . However, when it comes to vocalic contrasts, it is not always clear. The mid front vowel may fluctuate somewhere between close-mid and the more central-close vowel , pronounced like English i in 'in'. The sounds and often fluctuate with each other as in the example of '1SG verbal pronoun' and . This pattern of fluctuation seems to commonly occur for high front vowels. When looking at the length of vowels, long vowels are often confused with diphthongs.
The seven vowel sounds can be found in the following words:
IPA
Meaning
'tree wallaby'
'bed'
'make fire'
'flow'
'carry '
'namesake'
'taro'
'there'
'again'
The words below contain closed syllables which are the only attested words showing that syllable length is phonemic:
IPA
Meaning
'able, enough'
'hornbill'
'fall'
'fall '
'push'
'grave mound'
Lexicon
A great majority of Sulka's lexicon is not Oceanic/Austronesian as stated by Schneider. However, there are a few words that are shared between both Papuan and Oceanic. Examples from Sulka of East New Britain: A Mixture of Oceanic and Papuan Traits 1. pun 'base', as in a ho ka pun 'the tree its base', reflects POC *puqun. Laufer gives Mengen pun ~ Gunantuna vuna as evidence for the presence of Mengen speakers along the Wide Bay before Sulka speakers arrived from South New Ireland. But Sulka pun is not a recent Mengen loan. Rath gives bega pu-na for 'tree base-3SG.POSS'. 2. nut 'island' ~ POC *nusa, with reflexes such as nui in NNG and nua in PT, nuta in Southeast Solomonic. 3. kus 'rain' appears to reflect POC *qusan ; with kue as reflex in Mengen. 4. kopoi 'fog' ~ POC *kapu; *kopu. 5. malo 'skirt made of bark from the breadfruit tree'. The Sulka form is identical to the one found in Mengen and Kove of the North New Guinea linkage, rather than to mal as it appears in languages of the St. George linkage. Of course, it may be a recent direct borrowing from Mengen.
Verb Structure
2. Ngiera vokong a ho lang to nera hurpis. Habitual aspect and conditional mood utilize the same forms as the irrealis, both for 1SG and 2SG. In contrast, all of the other forms have more in common with the future pronouns because they also lack 3SG -t. Below, see examples of the habitual and the conditional, respectively: 3. Koma vle ma Mlavui kun mnam a rengmat to e Guma. 4. Kopa ya va kopa ngae.
Masculine/Feminine
Most Papuan languages have masculine and feminine distinctions. However, the Sulka language does not follow this rule. As for the Austronesian languages, where they have inclusive and exclusive opposition in nonsingular first person, Sulka does not follow them either. As stated by Reesink, "There is not even a third person differentiation between feminine and masculine genders".
