| Nii | |
|---|---|
| Ek Nii | |
| Native to | Papua New Guinea |
| Region | Western Highlands Province |
| Native speakers | (12,000 cited 1991) |
| Language family | Trans–New Guinea |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | nii |
| Glottolog | niii1240 |
Nii is a Trans–New Guinea language of the Chimbu–Wahgi branch spoken in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.
Nii has an unusual number of lateral consonants: a typical alveolar flap, /ɺ/, plus both dental and velar lateral fricatives, /ɬ̪/ and /𝼄/, which are voiced between vowels and do not occur in initial position.
Phonology
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u~ʊ | |
| Near-High | ɪ~ᵻ | ||
| Mid | ɛ | o~ɔ | |
| Open | a | ||
Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n̪ | n | ŋ | ||
| Prenasalized | ᵐb | ⁿdz | ⁿd | ᵑɡ | ||
| Oral | p | s̪ | r | k | ||
| Lateral | ɬ̪ | ɺ | 𝼄 | |||
| Approximant | w | j | ||||
| Phoneme | word- initial |
inter- vocalic |
word- final |
utterance- final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| /p/ | ~ | ~ | ||
| /s/ | ~~ | ~ | ~ | |
| /r/ | ~ (after another word) |
~ | (after a vowel) | |
| /k/ | ~ | ~ | ||
| /mb/ | ~ | ~ | ||
| /ndz/ | ~*** | ~~ | ||
| /nd/ | ~ | ~ | ~ | |
| /ŋɡ/ | ~ | ~ | ||
| /ɬ/ | NA | * | ||
| /ɺ/ | NA | ** | NA | |
| /𝼄/ | NA | ~ | ||
- * /ɬ/ is evidentally before a consonant
- ** /ɺ/ is before /r/; in word-final position this sequence becomes ~ .
- *** /ndz/ may have a vocoid release at the end of a syllable before a consonant.
The account of the initial allophones of /r/ is confused, and some of the other positions are not completely clear.
References
- Nii at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- Foley, 1986:63, The Papuan languages of New Guinea
- https://www.sil.org/system/files/reapdata/23/85/34/23853451869958568538398841625100014874/Nii_Phonology.pdf
Further reading
- Stucky, Al (1994). "Organised Phonology Data" (PDF).
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - Stucky, Alfred and Dellene Stucky 1973. "Nii phonology", in Alan Healey (ed.), Studies in languages of the Ok family, "Workpapers in Papua New Guinea Languages" 2, pp. 37-78. ,
| Languages of Papua New Guinea | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Official languages | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Major Indigenous languages |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Other Papuan languages |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sign languages | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chimbu–Wahgi languages | |
|---|---|
| Jimi | |
| Wahgi | |
| Chimbu | |
| Hagen | |
This Papuan languages–related article is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it. |
 | This Papua New Guinea-related article is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it. |