otukaka

Wauja

Etymology

From o- (3rd person possessive) +‎ -tukaka (“[woman's] opposite-sex sibling, i.e., brother”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɨˌtu.kaˈka/

Noun

otukaka (plural otukakanaun)

1. her brother (the brother of a girl or woman)

   Punupa otukaka, katapai otukake eu. Otukaka akixekojatapai han. Aya ewejeke kawoka. Hoona! uma.

   Her brother, you see, her brother was there. It was her brother that spoke with her. "Let's go play the flutes," [he said]. "Let's!" [she replied].

2. her male cousin (for a woman, any son of the siblings of either parent, or by extension, any male cousin of the same generation as the woman in question).
3. her husband (in the event that a young wife has not yet borne children by her husband, a polite way to refer to her husband is as "her brother".)

Usage notes

• Wauja women generally marry a cousin, whom they have have grown up calling "brother." Once a young couple has a child, the woman's husband may be referred to as "father of so-and-so".
• -tukaka is a bound morpheme and must always have a possessive prefix, answering the question "whose brother"? In other words, this noun is obligatorily possessed, and must show possession by someone. In the Wauja way of thinking, a brother is always somebody's brother.

• -tukaka becomes -tsukaka when the preceding vowel is i. Example: pitsukaka, ("your brother").

• In referring to siblings, Wauja distinguishes (1) whether the siblings are opposite gender, and (2) if the same gender, their relative seniority to one another. In other words, a man may not simply say, "my brother". He must choose either the word that means "my elder brother," or the word that means "my younger brother." In contrast, people refer to their opposite-gender siblings using a word that marks the relationship as opposite gender, but does not mark relative seniority. Ideally, brothers and sisters are lifelong partners, so that a man is widowed and in mourning, his sister might make him a hammock, and if a woman is widowed and in mourning, her brother will bring her fish to eat.

Inflection

My, our, your (sing.) your (plural), her, their (the girls' or women's) brother.

    Possession of otukaka

	singular	plural
first person	nutukaka	atukaka
second person	pitsukaka	yitsukaka
third person	otukaka	otukaka

Derived terms

• otukakalu (“sister of a man or boy”)

See also

• opawa (“his/her/its sibling”)
• osejo (“his younger brother”)
• oseju (“her younger sister”)
• otapojo (“his elder brother”)
• otapoju (“her elder sister”)
• osejo (“his younger brother”)

References

• "Punupa otukaka" uttered by Itsautaku, storyteller and elder, recounting the traditional Wauja tale of the "Man Who Drowned in Honey," in the presence of his adolescent son Mayuri, adult daughter Mukura, and others. Recorded in Piyulaga village by E. Ireland, December 1989, transcript p. 3.
• Remaining utterances from E. Ireland field notes. Need to be checked by native speaker.