| Oksapmin | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nuxule meŋ 'our language' | ||||
| Spoken in | Papua New Guinea | |||
| Region | Telefomin District, Sandaun | |||
| Native speakers | 8,000 (1991) | |||
| Language family | ||||
| Dialects |
Upper Oksapmin
Lower Oksapmin
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| Writing system | Latin | |||
| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | opm | |||
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Oksapmin is a Trans–New Guinea language spoken in Telefomin District, Sandaun, Papua New Guinea. It has been influenced by the Ok languages (indeed, the name "Oksapmin" is from an Ok language), and the similarities with those languages were attributed to borrowing in the classifications of both Stephen Wurm (1975) and Malcolm Ross (2005), where Oksapmin was placed as an independent branch of Trans–New Guinea. However, Loughnane (2009)[1] and Loughnane and Fedden (2011)[2] demonstrated that that it is related to the Ok languages, though they share innovative features not found in Oksapmin.
The two principal dialects are distinct enough to cause some problems with mutually intelligibility.
Oksapmin has dyadic kinship terms.[3]
Contents |
There are seven monophthongs, /i e ə a o ʉ u/, and one diphthong, /ai/.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unrounded | Rounded | |||||
| Stop | Voiceless | p | t | k | kʷ | |
| Voiced | b | d | ɡ | ɡʷ | ||
| Fricative | s | x | xʷ | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ŋʷ | ||
| Flap | ɾ | |||||
| Approximant | j | w | ||||
Oksapmin contrasts two tones: high and low.