Nii language

Trans–New Guinea language of Papua New Guinea
Nii
Ek Nii
Native toPapua New Guinea
RegionWestern Highlands Province
Native speakers
(12,000 cited 1991)[1]
Language family
Language codes
ISO 639-3nii
Glottologniii1240

Nii is a Trans–New Guinea language of the Chimbu–Wahgi branch spoken in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.

Nii has an unusual number of lateral consonants: a typical alveolar flap, /ɺ/, plus both dental and velar lateral fricatives, /ɬ̪/ and /𝼄/, which are voiced between vowels and do not occur in initial position.[2][3]

Phonology

Vowels

Front Central Back
High i u~ʊ
Near-High ɪ~ᵻ
Mid ɛ o~ɔ
Open a

Consonants

Nii consonants (Stucky 1973)
Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar
Nasal m n̪ n ŋ
Prenasalized ᵐb ⁿdz ⁿd ᵑɡ
Oral p s̪ r k
Lateral ɬ̪ ɺ 𝼄
Approximant w j
Nii consonant allophones (Stucky 1973)
Phoneme word-
initial		 inter-
vocalic		 word-
final		 utterance-
final
/p/ [p]~[b] [pᵊ]~[pʰ] [pʰ]
/s/ [s̪]~[t̪s̪]~[t̪] [s̪]~[t̪] [s̪]~[t̪s̪]
/r/ [t]~[r](?)
(after another word)		 [ɾ]~[r] [r̥] (after a vowel)
/k/ [k]~[ɡ] [kᵊ]~[kʰ] [kʰ]
/mb/ [mb] [mb]~[mp] [mpᵊ]~[mpʰ] [mpʰ]
/ndz/ [n̪d̪z]~[n̪t̪s]*** [n̪d̪z]~[n̪t̪s]~[n̪s]
/nd/ [nd]~[nt] [ntᵊ]~[ntʰ] [ntʰ]~[nt𐞩̥]
/ŋɡ/ [ŋk]~[ŋɡ] [ŋkᵊ]~[ŋkʰ] [ŋkʰ]
/ɬ/ NA [ɮ̪]* [ɬ̪]
/ɺ/ NA [ɺ]** NA
/𝼄/ NA [ʟ̝] [𝼄]~[𝼄ᵊ] [𝼄]
* /ɬ/ is evidentally [l̪] before a consonant
** /ɺ/ is [l] before /r/; in word-final position this sequence becomes [lt𐞩̥] ~ [ltʰ].
*** /ndz/ may have a vocoid release [n̪d̪zᶦ] at the end of a syllable before a consonant.

The account of the initial allophones of /r/ is confused, and some of the other positions are not completely clear.

References

  1. ^ Nii at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ Foley, 1986:63, The Papuan languages of New Guinea
  3. ^ https://www.sil.org/system/files/reapdata/23/85/34/23853451869958568538398841625100014874/Nii_Phonology.pdf [bare URL PDF]

Further reading

  • Stucky, Al (1994). "Organised Phonology Data" (PDF). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  • Stucky, Alfred and Dellene Stucky 1973. "Nii phonology", in Alan Healey (ed.), Studies in languages of the Ok family, "Workpapers in Papua New Guinea Languages" 2, pp. 37-78. [1], [2]
  • v
  • t
  • e
Official languagesMajor Indigenous
languagesOther Papuan
languages
Angan
Awin–Pa
Binanderean
Bosavi
Chimbu–Wahgi
New Ireland
Duna–Pogaya
East Kutubuan
East Strickland
Engan
Eleman
Ok–Oksapmin
Teberan
Tirio
Turama–Kikorian
Larger families
Sign languages


This Papuan languages-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

  • v
  • t
  • e
Stub icon

This Papua New Guinea-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

  • v
  • t
  • e