Ekari language
This article has an unclear citation style.(May 2015) |
Ekari | |
---|---|
Mee | |
Native to | Indonesia |
Region | Papua |
Ethnicity | Ekari |
Native speakers | (100,000 cited 1985)[1] |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | ekg |
Glottolog | ekar1243 |
Ekari (also Ekagi, Kapauku, Mee) is a Trans–New Guinea language spoken by about 100,000 people in the Paniai lakes region of the Indonesian province of Papua, including the villages of , Mapia and Moanemani. This makes it the second-most populous Papuan language in Indonesian New Guinea after Western Dani. Language use is vigorous. Documentation is quite limited.
Phonology[]
Consonants[]
Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | plain | p | t | k | |
voiced | b | d | ɡᶫ | ||
Nasal | m | n | |||
Approximant | w | j |
The voiced velar stop (ɡᶫ) is pronounced with lateral release. Doble (1987) describes both /k/ and /ɡᶫ/ as being labialized [kʷ, ɡᶫʷ] after the back vowels /o, u/ (i.e. okei 'they', euga 'more'), with g having 'varying' degrees of the lateral.[2] Staroverov & Tebay (2019) describe /ɡᶫ/ as being velar lateral [ɡᶫ] before front vowels and uvular non-lateral [ɢʶ] before non-front vowels. When lateral, there is usually a stop onset, but occasionally just [ʟ] is heard.[3]
/j/ is a 'more palatalized [ʒ]' (perhaps [ʝ] or [ʑ]) before the high front vowel /i/ (i.e. yina 'insect').[2]
Vowels[]
Both Doble (1987) and Staroverov & Tebay (2019) describe five vowel qualities. Long vowels and diphthongs are analyzed as sequences.
front | central | back | |
---|---|---|---|
high | i | u | |
mid | ɛ | o | |
low | a |
Tone[]
Ekari has pitch accent. One syllable in a word may have a high tone, contrasting with words without a high tone. If the vowel is long or a diphthong and not at the end of the word, the high tone is phonetically rising.
CV words have no tone contrast. CVV words may be mid/low or high. (In all of these patterns, here and following, initial C is optional.)
Words of the following shapes may have a contrastive high tone on the final syllable: CVCV, CVCVV. Words of the following shapes may have either a rising or a falling tone on the first long syllable: CVVCV, CVVCVV, CVCVVCVV, CVVCVCV (rare), CVVCVCVV (rare). The following word shapes do not have contrastive tone: CVCVCV, CVCVVCV, CVCVCVV, and words of 4 or more syllables.
References[]
- ^ Ekari at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ^ Jump up to: a b Doble (1987)
- ^ Staroverov, Peter; Tebay, Sören E. (2019), "Posterior Affricate in Mee and Consonant-Vowel Place Interactions", Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Meetings on Phonology, 7, doi:10.3765/amp.v7i0.4481
Bibliography[]
- Doble, Marion (1962). "Essays on Kapauku grammar". Nieuw Guinea Studiën. 6: 152-5, 211-8, 279-98.
- Doble, Marion (1987). "A description of some features of Ekari language structure". Oceanic Linguistics. 26 (1/2): 55–113. doi:10.2307/3623166. JSTOR 3623166.
- Drabbe, Peter (1952). Spraakkunst van het Ekagi, Wisselmeren, Nederlands Nieuw Guinea (in Dutch). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
- Steltenpool, J (1969). Ekagi-Dutch-English-Indonesian Dictionary. VKI 56. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
External links[]
Materials on Ekari are included in the open access Arthur Capell collections held by Paradisec:
- Paniai Lakes languages
- Languages of western New Guinea