Dobu language

Dobu or Dobuan is an Austronesian language spoken in Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. It is a lingua franca for 100,000 people in D'Entrecasteaux Islands.

Dobu
Dobuan
Native toPapua New Guinea
RegionMilne Bay Province, tip of Cape Vogel
Native speakers
(10,000 cited 1998)[1]
60% monolingual[1]
L2 speakers: 51,000 (2021)[1]
Latin script (Dobuan alphabet)
Dobuan Braille
Language codes
ISO 639-3dob
Glottologdobu1241

Phonology

Consonants
Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
plain lab. plain lab. plain lab.
Plosive voiceless p pʷ t k kʷ ʔ ʔʷ
voiced b bʷ d ɡ ɡʷ
Fricative s
Nasal m mʷ n
Flap ɺ
Approximant j w
  • Sounds /p, t, k/ may also be aspirated in free variation as [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ] in all environments.
  • The lateral flap /ɺ/ may fluctuate with an alveolar vibrant flap [ɾ] depending on the dialect of the speaker.
  • /j/ may also fluctuate with a fricative [ʝ] within vocabulary.

Vowels
Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid ɛ ɔ
Open a
  • /a/ may be heard as [ʌ] in unstressed syllables.
  • /ɔ/ may be heard as slightly more centralized [ɔ̽] when following labialized consonants in unstressed positions.
  • /u/ may be heard as [ʊ] in unstressed syllables.[2]

References
  1. Dobu at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) closed access
  2. Lithgow, Daphne (1977). Dobu phonemics. Phonologies of Five P.N.G. languages: Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics. pp. 73–96.
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