Kiwai language
language
Kiwai is a Papuan language, or languages, of southern Papua New Guinea. Dialects number 1,300 Kope, 700 Gibaio, 1,700 Urama, 700 Arigibi (together "Northeast Kiwai"), 3,800 Coast, 1,000 Daru, 4,500 Island, 400 Doumori (together "Southern Kiwai"). Wurm and Hattori (1981) classify Arigibi as a separate language.
Introduction
Kiwai Island is a long/low island located on the Eastern side of the Southern entrance to the delta of the Fly River (Papua).
Alphabet
17 Letters
vowels: a, e, i, o, u (diphthongs are combinations of any two vowels, e.g. ai, au, oi, ou, ei, etc.)
Consonants: k, g, t, s, d, n, r, p, b, m, v, h
Semivowel: w/u, i/y /j/
Phonology
Consonants
/m/ can have allophones of [v, β] when in intervocalic positions.
[l] can be heard interchangeably with /ɾ/ in some dialects.
Vowels
/ɛ/ may also range to [e].
Grammar
Parts of speech
Parts of speech are associated with the standard European parts of speech, somewhat inelegantly. The three major parts of speech are Nominals, Verbs and Particles:
Nominals
Nouns, Adjectives, Pronouns (Personal and Relative), Interrogative words, Nominal adverbs, Numerals
Nominals are declined for case (including the ergative).
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This entry incorporates text from “Kiwai language” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.