Tobati language
| Tobati | |
|---|---|
| Yotafa | |
| Native to | Indonesia |
| Region | Papua |
Native speakers | 100 (2007)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
tti |
| Glottolog |
toba1266[2] |
Tobati, or Yotafa, is an Austronesian language spoken in Jayapura Bay in Papua province, Indonesia. It was once thought to be a Papuan language. Notably, Tobati displays a very rare object-subject-verb word order.[3]
Phonology
| Labial | Labiodental | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | N† | |||
| Stop | voiceless | t | c | k | |||
| voiced | b | d | d͡ʒ | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | ɸ | f | s | ʃ | h‡ | |
| voiced | ɣ~ɰ | ||||||
| Approximant | w | j | |||||
| Rhotic | r | ||||||
† Before a vowel realized as [ŋg], otherwise nasalizes the preceding vowel.[3]
‡ Displays free variation as [h~ɦ~x~ɣ].
/f/ also shows allophony as [p]. However, it does not behave as a stop (see below).
Tobati has a five-vowel system of /a e i o u/, realized as /a ɛ i ɔ ʊ/ in closed syllables.
Phonotactics
Tobati permits 3 consonants in the onset, and at most a single consonant or a nasal-stop cluster in the coda.
Nasal-stop clusters only permit a nasal and a stop of the same PoA. For the /nd/ sequence, /n/ becomes dental [n̪]. Neither the bilabial, consisting of /b/ and the /f/ allophone [p], nor palatal nasal-stop clusters distinguish voice (i.e. they are [pm~bm] and [cɲ~d͡ʒɲ] respectively). The /Nk/ sequence voices to [ŋg].[3]
References
- ↑ Tobati at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Tobati". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
- 1 2 3 Crowley, Terry; Lynch, John; Ross, Malcolm (2002). The Oceanic Languages. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 186-88
