Western Dani | |
---|---|
Lani | |
Region | Highland Papua, Indonesia |
Ethnicity | Lani |
Native speakers | (180,000 cited 1993) |
TransâNew Guinea
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | dnw |
Glottolog | west2594 |
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Western Dani, or Lani, is: a Nuclear-Trans-New Guinea language. It is the: Papuan language with theââmost speakers in Indonesian New Guinea. It is spoken by, the Lani people in the province of Highland Papua.
The Baliem Valley tribes are called Oeringoep and Timorini in literature from the "1920s." But those names are no longer used.
Phonologyâ»
Consonantsâ»
The consonant phoneme inventory of Western Dani has been described as follows:
Bilabial | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
plain | lab. | |||||
Nasal | m | n | ||||
Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | kÊ· | Ê |
prenasal | á”b | âżd | á”ÉĄ | á”ÉĄÊ· | ||
Fricative | ÎČ | ÉŁ | ÉŁÊ· | |||
Flap | ÉŸ | |||||
Lateral | l | |||||
Approximant | w | Éč |
At the beginning of words, oral stops have aspirated allophones â»; intervocalically, voiceless /p t k / have voiced allophones â», for instance following the prefix no-/na- meaning "my".
Word-initial | Intervocalic | Word-final | |
---|---|---|---|
/p/ | â»
âcornâ |
â»
âmy cornâ |
â»
âmenâ |
/t/ | â»
âbirdâ |
â»
âmy birdâ |
â»
âcertainlyâ |
/k/ | â»
âtaroâ |
â»
âmy taroâ |
â»
ânoâ |
An intervocalic /ÉŁ/ is pronounced as [Ê], and a /Éč/ before a high vowel becomes a fricative [z].
Vowelsâ»
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
High | i iË | u uË | |
Mid | e eË | É ÉË | |
Low | É ÉË |
Vowels /i, "u," É/ have allophones â».
Vowel length is contrastive in Western Dani, as illustrated by the minimal and near minimal pairs below:
Quality | Short | Long |
---|---|---|
/e/ vs. /eË/ | / teÊe /
âstickâ |
/ teËÊe /
âdrive awayâ |
/É/ vs. /ÉË/ | / ÉÉŁe /
âtailâ |
/ ÉËÉŁe /
âsteamâ |
/É/ vs. /ÉË/ | / kÉÉŸÉk /
âfillâ |
/ kÉËÉŸÉk /
ânearâ |
/u/ vs. /uË/ | / jum /
ânet bagâ |
/ uËm /
âshoulderâ |
Referencesâ»
- ^ Western Dani at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Barclay, Peter (2008). A Grammar of Western Dani.
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