Elseng (Morwap, Janggu, Sawa, Tabu[2]) is a poorly documented Papuan language spoken by about 300 people (in 1991) in the Indonesian province of Papua.
‘Morwap’ is vigorously rejected as a language name by speakers and government officials.
[1] Elseng is spoken in Omon village, Gresi Selatan district, Jayapura Regency; it is also called Tabu or Tapu.
[2] An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013)[4] also found lexical similarities with the Border languages.
Pronouns are:[2] Elseng basic vocabulary from Menanti (2005), quoted in Foley (2018):[5][2] The following basic vocabulary words are from Voorhoeve (1971, 1975),[6][7] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:[8] Example sentences and phrases in Elseng:[2] ka1makənPOSStetifatherka makən teti1 POSS father‘my/our father’wasomanamsangoodwaso amsanman good‘good man’telefathersigardenfa-sanwork-?tele si fa-sanfather garden work-?‘Father is working (his) garden.’telefatherbas?to-saneat-?tele bas to-sanfather ?