Studies in Iranian Languages Part II

Hatam is spoken by approximately 16,000 speakers, living in the Arfak mountains, roughly between
Manokwari and the Anggi lakes. Other names used to refer to this language, or some of its dialects, are
Hattam, Atam, Tinam, Miriei, Moi, Adihup, Uran, Borai, Mansim, see (Silzer and Heikkinen 1991:50). The
first two are clearly spelling variants. The origin of the name Hatam is not clear. The language is spoken
in two major dialects, called Tinam and Miriei, and two minor dialects, Adihup and Uran. Other names
used to refer to some of these dialects are Moil(l)e for Miriei and Waran for Uran. The meaning of Miriei
is 'those of the Prafi', since riei is the Hatam name for the Prafi river, and mi- is a nominalizing prefix. A-
di~hup can be analyzed as 'people who (live in the) warm area'; hup corresponds to Biak sup, and in this
case refers to the foothills of the Arfak mountains. The names Borai and Mansim refer both to an extinct
language, closely related to Hatam, see (Reesink 2000b). The genetic relation of these two languages with
other languages is still not clear. Possibly a distant relation with the other West-Papuan languages, i.e.
the Non-Austronesian languages of the Bird's Head and North-Halmahera, exists, see Reesink (2000a).

In 1993 a New Testament was published in the main dialect of Tinam by the Indonesian Bible
Society. A dictionary of about 4,000 words was published by The Evangelical Alliance Mission (Griffiths
1994). A short reference grammar with extensive text material is Reesinkl999.

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ISSN 0126 -2874

NUSA

LINGUISTIC STUDIES OF INDONESIAN
AND OTHER LANGUAGES IN INDONESIA

VOLUME 47, 2000

STUDIES IN IRIAN LANGUAGES

PART II

Edited by
GER P. REESINK