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Nama (or Noraia) is a Yam language spoken in Western Province, Papua New Guinea.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | lab. | plain | lab. | |||||
| Nasal | m | mʷ | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | (p) | t | k | kʷ | |||
| voiced | b | d | d͡ʒ | ɡ | (ɡʷ) | |||
| prenasal | ᵐb | ᵐbʷ | ⁿd | ⁿd͡ʒ | ᵑɡ | ᵑɡʷ | ||
| Fricative | ɸ | ɸʷ | s | ɣ | ||||
| Rhotic | r | |||||||
| Lateral | l | |||||||
| Approximant | j | w | ||||||
- Sounds /p/ and /ɡʷ/ only occur marginally.
- Sounds /t, d, ⁿd/ may range in articulation, varying from dental [t̪, d̪, ⁿd̪] to alveolar [t, d, ⁿd].
- /r/ can be heard as a tap [ɾ] when in rapid speech and in consonant clusters.
- /ɸ/ can become voiced as [β] when intervocalically or word-finally.
- /ɣ/ can also be heard as [ɰ] in some contexts.
- Sounds /n, r/ can occur as geminates [nː, rː].
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | y | u | |
| Near-close | ɪ | |||
| Mid | e | ø | ə | o |
| Near-open | æ | |||
| Open | a | |||
- Sounds /i, o, u/ can be heard as [ɪ], [ɔ], [ʊ, ʉ] within diphthongs.[2]
References
- ^ Nama at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Siegel, Jeff (2023). A Grammar of Nama: A Papuan Language of Southern New Guinea. De Gruyter.
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