| Abau | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in | Papua New Guinea |
| Region | Sandaun |
| Native speakers | 4,500–5,000 (date missing) |
| Language family |
Sepik
|
| Writing system | Latin |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | aau |
Abau is a Papuan language spoken in the Sandaun Province of Papua New Guinea, primarily along the shores of the Sepik River.
In 2002, there were estimated to be between 4,500 and 5,000 speakers, and this number does not appear to have declined since the first accurate count in the 1970s.
Abau is reported to have whistled speech.
Contents |
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | ə | o |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Open | a |
/ə/ appears only in medial positions.[1]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | |||
| Plosive | p | k | |||
| Fricative | s | h | |||
| Flap | r | ||||
| Approximant | j | w |
/r/ has several allophones: word-initially, it is [l], after /n/ it is [d], [r] intervocalically, and [t] or [ɺ] word-finally. /h/ becomes [ç] before /i/ and [ɸ] before /u/. Plosives are voiced when following nasal consonants.[1]