Gimi language

Gimi (Labogai) is a Papuan language spoken in Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea.

Gimi
Native toPapua New Guinea
RegionEastern Highlands Province
Native speakers
23,000 (2000)[1]
Dialects
  • Gouno
Language codes
ISO 639-3gim
Glottologgimi1243

Phonology

Gimi has 5 vowels and 12 consonants.[2] It has voiceless and voiced glottal consonants where related languages have /k/ and /ɡ/. The voiceless glottal is simply a glottal stop [ʔ]. The voiced consonant behaves phonologically like a glottal stop, but does not have full closure. Phonetically it is a creaky-voiced glottal approximant [ʔ̞].[3]

Vowels

Front Back
High i u
Mid e o
Low ɑ

Consonants

Bilabial Alveolar Glottal
Plosive voiceless p t ʔ
voiced b d ʔ̞
Nasal m n
Tap/Flap ɾ
Fricative voiceless s h
voiced z

Allophony

/p/ occurs word initially only in loanwords.

/b/ can surface as either [b] or [β] in free variation.

/z/ becomes [s] before /ɑ/.

/t/ and /ɾ/ tend to fluctuate with one another word initially.

Syllables

The syllable structure is (C)V(G), where G is either /ʔ/ or /ʔ̞/.

Tone

The final vowel of a word takes either a level or falling tone. The falling tone is written with an acute accent.

ak "seed" ák "armband"
nimi "bird" nimí "louse"

Orthography

Gimi uses the Latin script.[2]

Letter Aa Bb Dd Ee Gg Hh Ii Kk Mm Nn Oo Pp Rr Ss Tt Uu Zz
IPA ɑ b d e ʔ̞ h i ʔ m n o p ɾ s t u z

References

  1. Gimi at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) closed access
  2. Gimi Organised Phonology Data. [Manuscript]
  3. Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 77–78. ISBN 978-0-631-19815-4.
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