Gimi | |
---|---|
Native to | Papua New Guinea |
Region | Eastern Highlands Province |
Native speakers | 23,000 (2000)[1] |
Dialects |
|
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | gim |
Glottolog | gimi1243 |
Gimi (Labogai) is a Papuan language spoken in Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea.
Phonology
Gimi has 5 vowels and 12 consonants.[2] It has voiceless and voiced glottal consonants where related languages have /k/ and /ɡ/. The voiceless glottal is simply a glottal stop [ʔ]. The voiced consonant behaves phonologically like a glottal stop, but does not have full closure. Phonetically it is a creaky-voiced glottal approximant [ʔ̞].[3]
Vowels
Front | Back | |
---|---|---|
High | i | u |
Mid | e | o |
Low | ɑ |
Consonants
Bilabial | Alveolar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | voiceless | p | t | ʔ |
voiced | b | d | ʔ̞ | |
Nasal | m | n | ||
Tap/Flap | ɾ | |||
Fricative | voiceless | s | h | |
voiced | z |
Allophony
/p/ occurs word initially only in loanwords.
/b/ can surface as either [b] or [β] in free variation.
/z/ becomes [s] before /ɑ/.
/t/ and /ɾ/ tend to fluctuate with one another word initially.
Syllables
The syllable structure is (C)V(G), where G is either /ʔ/ or /ʔ̞/.
Tone
The final vowel of a word takes either a level or falling tone. The falling tone is written with an acute accent.
ak "seed" | ák "armband" | ||
nimi "bird" | nimí "louse" |
Orthography
Gimi uses the Latin script.[2]
Letter | Aa | Bb | Dd | Ee | Gg | Hh | Ii | Kk | Mm | Nn | Oo | Pp | Rr | Ss | Tt | Uu | Zz |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
IPA | ɑ | b | d | e | ʔ̞ | h | i | ʔ | m | n | o | p | ɾ | s | t | u | z |
References
- ^ Gimi at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ a b Gimi Organised Phonology Data. [Manuscript] [1]
- ^ Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 77–78. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.