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Revision as of 19:29, 27 February 2013
| Nakanai | |
|---|---|
| Lakalai | |
| Native to | Papua New Guinea |
| Native speakers | 13,000 |
| Language family | Austronesian |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | nak |
Nakanai is spoken by the Nakanai tribe in West New Britain, a province of Papua New Guinea. It is an Austronesian language, belonging to the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup.
The name Nakanai is natively pronounced Lakalai, as the alveolar nasal has disappeared from the phonemic inventory of the language and has been replaced by .
Phonology
Nakanai syllables may be of the shape V or CV, with no codas or consonant clusters to be found anywhere in the language.
References
- Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International.
- Johnston, Raymond Leslie. 1980. Nakanai of New Britain: The Grammar of an Oceanic Language. Pacific Linguistics: Series B-70.
- Spaelti, Philip. 1997. Dimensions of Variation in Multi-Pattern Reduplication. Doctoral Dissertation: University of California, Santa Cruz.