In angle brackets is the romanization Walter Seiler used in his 1985 grammar of the language, which is the most prevalent scheme.
[2] Late in the 19th century, Imonda speakers had limited contact with Malay traders.
Though in some areas of New Guinea the locals became fluent in Malay at the time, there appears to have been no such influence on Imonda speakers.
At this time many Imonda speakers did learn Malay (notably not recognizing that they had had any previous contact with it) and were exposed to Western culture.
At that date, the Australians assumed control from Dutch New Guinea, and the Imonda split into two groups and established two villages in more accessible locations: Mol (daughter) and Põs (grass).
The grammar of the language was studied in detail by Walter Seiler in a Ph.D. dissertation (1984)[3] and subsequent book (1985).
Several verbs can use classifiers or not, with no change in meaning: ne "eat", pada "hold", and li "lie".
These copulae evolved out of the verbs lõh "stand", ale "sit" and li "lie".
A single verb ‘ai’ ‘give’, marks for singular recipient obligatorily with the suffix ‘’-h’’.
In Imonda, transitive verbs agree with subjects in number by vowel raising or suppletion.