Western Dani language
Western Dani, or Lani, is the most populous Papuan language in Indonesian New Guinea. It is spoken by the Lani people in the province of Highland Papua. The Baliem Valley tribes are called Oeringoep and Timorini in literature from the 1920s, but those names are no longer used.
| Western Dani | |
|---|---|
| Lani | |
| Region | Highland Papua, Indonesia |
| Ethnicity | Lani |
Native speakers | (180,000 cited 1993)[1] |
Trans–New Guinea
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | dnw |
| Glottolog | west2594 |
Phonology
The phonology of the Western Dani language:[2]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | lab. | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | ||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p (pʰ) | t (tʰ) | k (kʰ) | kʷ (kʷʰ) | ʔ |
| prenasal | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᵑɡ | ᵑɡʷ | ||
| Fricative | β | ɣ | ɣʷ | |||
| Flap | ɾ | |||||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Approximant | w | ɹ | ||||
At the beginning of words, stops sound aspirated. An intervocalic /ɣ/ is pronounced as [ʁ], and a /ɹ/ before a high vowel becomes a fricative [z].
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i iː | u uː | |
| Mid | e eː | ɒ ɒː | |
| Low | ɐ ɐː |
References
- Western Dani at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- Barclay, Peter (2008). A Grammar of Western Dani.
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