Wano language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wano
RegionCentral Papua
EthnicityWano people [id]
Native speakers
1,000 (2011)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3wno
Glottologwano1243
ELPWano

Wano is a Papuan language of the Indonesian province of Central Papua.

Phonology[edit]

Consonant phonemes[2]
Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n
Plosive p b t d k ʔ
Fricative β
Approximant j w
Vowel phonemes[2]
Front Back
High i u
Mid ɛ ɔ
Close a

As well as the monophthongs described above, Wano also has seven diphthongs: /i̯a/, /ɛi̯/, /ai̯/, /au̯/, /ɔi̯/, /ɔu̯/, and /ui̯/.[2]

Allophony[edit]

  • The voiced plosives /b/ and /d/ are imploded to /ɓ/ and /ɗ/ when word-initially and intervocalically.[2]
  • When a nasal occurs before /p/, /p/ becomes a prenasalized voiced plosive [ᵐb]. Similarly, when a nasal occurs before /t/ or /k/, they become, respectively, [ⁿd] and [ᵑɡ].[2]
  • /t/ and /k/ intervocalically become /ɾ/ and /ɣ/.[3]
  • /p/, /k/, /ɡ/, and /ɡ/'s allophone, [ᵑɡ] become labialized before /w/, with /ɡ/ becoming [ɣʷ].[2]
  • The sequences /tj/ and /dj/ become the palatal fricatives /ç ʝ/.[2] However, this analysis more signifies the corresponding Dutch digraphs, since these have no morphological significance, and in the modern orthography these are written as ⟨c⟩ and ⟨j⟩.

Orthography[edit]

Here is the orthography used by Willem Burung on his works. These are not necessarily separate letters.

Letter IPA Letter IPA Letter IPA
a [a] j [ʝ] o [ɔ]
b [ɓ] k [k] p [p]
c [ç] m [m] t [t]
d [ɗ] mb [ᵐb] u [u]
e [ɛ] n [n] v [β]
g [ɣ] nd [ⁿd] w [w]
i [i] ngg [ᵑɡ] y [j]

Grammar[edit]

Nouns[edit]

Inalienable nouns could be pluralized by suffixing -i (after consonants) or -vi (after vowels), while alienable nouns do not (similar to Indonesian, where pluralization is optional).[4] The inalienable plurals can be postposed with numerals (aburi kena "her two children").

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Wano at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Burung, Willem (2007). The Phonology of Wano (PDF). SIL International.
  3. ^ Burung 2016, p. 44 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFBurung2016 (help)
  4. ^ Burung, Willem (2016). A grammar of Wano (PhD thesis). University of Oxford.

Further reading[edit]