Talk:Nivkh language

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[edit] Term

нивхгу Nivxgu

This term refers to the people, not the language. It consists of the root нивх (Nivx) 'Nivkh; human being' plus the plural suffix -гу (-gu). The Nivkh term is /mer nivx tif/, that is, 'we people language', in the Southeast Sakhalin dialect: /ñiγvn duf/ 'Nivkh language'.

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I'd like to add a section on phonology, but the sources I have are from the Rosetta Project, and don't show proper bibliographical information. These are not public domain works.

http://www.rosettaproject.org/live/search/showpages?ethnocode=NIV&doctype=phon&scale=six&version=1 http://www.rosettaproject.org/live/search/showpages?ethnocode=NIV&doctype=phon&scale=six&version=2&allpages=1

Nivkh has a three-way distinction of stops, which are found in the bilabial, dental, palatal, velar and uvular positions:

• Voiced stops: b d ɟ g ɢ
• Voiceless plain stops: p t c k q
• Voiceless aspirated stops: pʰ tʰ cʰ kʰ qʰ

There are four nasals, with the uvular member not represented: m n ɲ ŋ

Fricatives may be labiodental, alveolar-sibilant, velar, uvular or glottal:

• Voiced: v z ɣ ʁ
• Voiceless: f s x χ h

The other consonants are continuants: There are palatal and lateral members, plus two rhotics: one a voiced trill, the other a fricative similar to a voiceless form of Czech ř.

• Glides: l j rʃ r

There are six vowels:

• High: i u
• Middle: e ə o
• Low: a

Nivkh is written in Cyrillic characters, but contains several letters not encoded in the current Unicode standard. A PDF document displaying the Nivkh alphabet can be found here: http://ee.www.ee/transliteration/pdf/Nivkh.pdf.

Feel free to verify the accuracy of this listing, then post in a format acceptable for Wikipedia articles. LudwigVan 14:24, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] sources

There are brief phonological notes in the two dictionaries by V. N. Savel'neva and Ch. M. Taksami (the most famous literary figure of the Nivkhs):

"Grammaticheskie tablicï nivxskogo yazïka". In: Savel'neva, V. N. and Ch. M. Taksami. Russko-Nivxskij Slovar'. pp. 469-479.

"Kratkoe grammaticheskoe prilozhenie". In: Savel'neva, V. N. and Ch. M. Taksami. Nivxsko-Russkij Slovar'. pp.504-536.

--149.159.2.14 19:14, 10 August 2005 (UTC)