Wahgi language
| Wahgi | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Papua New Guinea |
| Region | Western Highlands Province |
Native speakers | 86,000 (1999)[1] |
|
Trans–New Guinea
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
Either: wgi – Mid-Wahgi whg – North Wahgi |
| Glottolog |
nucl1620 (Nuclear Wahgi)[2]nort2921 (North Wahgi)[3] |
Wahgi is a Trans–New Guinea language of the Chimbu–Wahgi branch spoken by approximately 100,000 people in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.
Phonology
Consonants
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n̪ | ŋ | ||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | |||
| prenasalised | m͡b | n͡d | ŋ͡g | ||||
| Lateral affricate | k͡ʟ̝̊ | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | central | s | ||||
| lateral | ɬ̪ | (ɬ) | |||||
| voiced | central | z | |||||
| lateral | ɮ̪ | ||||||
| Approximant | lateral | voiced | l̪ | l | ʟ | ||
| voiceless | ʟ。 | ||||||
| central | j | ||||||
| Lateral flap | ɺ | ||||||
Like other Chimbu languages, Wahgi has some unusual lateral consonants. According to Phillips (1973),[4] Middle Wahgi has three lateral fricatives, all of which are voiceless in final position and optionally but freely voiced between vowels:
- Dental /ɬ̪/ appears as a "voiceless dental fricative lateral with voiceless grooved dental fricative release", [ɬ̪ˢ], as well as voiceless and voiced dental lateral fricatives, [ɬ̪] and [ɮ̪].
- Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative/ɬ/
- A voiceless velar lateral fricative /ʟ̝̊/ appears as voiceless [ʟ̝̊] and voiced [ʟ̝]. These occur in free variation with a uvular flap [ɢ̆] intervocalically, and with a voiceless affricate [k͡ʟ̝̊]. Before dental and alveolar consonants, it assimilates to alveolar [ɬ].
In North Wahgi, and in other related languages, the velar lateral corresponds to an alveolar lateral flap, [ɺ].[5]
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i, ɪ | ʊ, u | |
| Open | ɛ | ɑ |
References
- ↑ Mid-Wahgi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
North Wahgi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) - ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Nuclear Wahgi". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "North Wahgi". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- ↑ Donald Phillips, 1973, Wahgi phonology and morphology, Pacific linguistics B, issue 36, pp 17
- ↑ Phillips 1973:59