קלאם

Kalam (autonymously "Kalam") is a Trans-New Guinea language of the Schrader Range in highland Madang Province, Papua New Guinea. Linguistically famous for two reasons: (1) the "pandanus language" — a parallel ritual lexicon used during pandanus-nut harvesting that systematically substitutes alternative roots for everyday words; and (2) extreme verbal compounding (serial verb constructions where a single grammatical predicate may incorporate up to 6+ verb roots), exhaustively documented in Pawley & Bulmer's 1500+ page Dictionary of Kalam (2011) which combines linguistic analysis with extensive ethnobiological documentation of plants, animals, and traditional knowledge. The Kalam are also linguistically notable for systems of evidentiality and elaborate kinship terminology.