Lihir language
The Lihir language is an Austronesian language spoken in the Lihir island group, in New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea. It is notable for having 5 levels of grammatical number: singular, dual, trial, paucal and plural.[2] It is questionable whether the trial is indeed trial or whether it is paucal, leaving there being a paucal and a greater paucal.[2] Either way, this is the highest number of levels of grammatical number in any language.[2] This distinction appears in both independent pronouns and possessor suffixes.[2] There is some variation in pronunciation and orthography between the main island Niolam, and some of the smaller islands in the group.
Lihir | |
---|---|
Region | Lihir Island, off New Ireland |
Native speakers | 13,000 (2000 census)[1] |
Austronesian
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | lih |
Glottolog | lihi1237 |
Phonology
Lihir has a relatively large vowel phone inventory, in which all vowel phonemes can occur word initially with the exception of the front rounded vowel.[3] Sources are indeterminate with regards to the phonemic status of different surface vowels, although minimal pairs provide evidence for the phonemic status of most vowel qualities.
Front | Central | Back | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
unrounded | rounded | |||||||
short | long | short | long | short | long | short | long | |
Close | ɪ | iː | ʊ | uː | ||||
Close-mid | eː | øː | ə | oː | ||||
Open-mid | ɛ | ɛː | œ | ɔ | ||||
Open | a | aː |
Labial | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Stops | p | t | k | ʔ |
Prenasalized Stops | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᵑɡ | |
Affricates | t͡s | |||
Fricatives | s | x | h | |
Nasals | m | n | ŋ | |
Liquids | l r |
References
- Lihir at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- Corbett, Greville G. (2000). Number. Cambridge textbooks in linguistics. Cambridge University Press. p. 25. ISBN 9780521649704. Retrieved 2010-05-26.
- Neuhaus, Karl (2015). Grammar of the Lihir Language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Boroko, Port Moresby: Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies. p. 30.