Aghu, or Central Awyu, is a Papuan language of South Papua, Indonesia. It may actually be two languages, depending on one's criteria for a 'language'. The two varieties are:[2] Mappi River Awyu (Aghu) and Pasue River (Pasuwe River) Awyu (Nohon, ?Mitak).[citation needed]

Phonology

The phonology of the Aghu language:[3]

Consonants
Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar
Nasal m n
Plosive voiceless p t k
voiced b d~ɾ ɡ
Fricative f s~ʃ x
Approximant w j
Vowels
Front Central Back
Close i y u
Mid ɛ ɛː ɔ ɔː
Open a

At the ends of words, vowels may appear both long and nasalized. This occurs historically where there was a final nasal /m/ or /n/. Within words, rather than nasal vowels there are sequences of vowel plus nasal consonant which matches the articulation of the following consonant. Thus nasal vowels may be analyzed as /Vn/ or /VN/.

References

  1. ^ Aghu at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) closed access
    Central Awyu at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) closed access
  2. ^ "Awyu". newguineaworld.
  3. ^ van den Heuvel, Wilco (2016). Aghu: Annotated Texts With Grammatical Introduction and Vocabulary Lists. A-PL 33. Canberra: Australian National University. hdl:1885/111412. ISBN 9781922185358.

Further reading

External links