Foau language

The Abawiri language, Foau, also known as Doa, is a Lakes Plain language of Papua, Indonesia. Clouse tentatively included Abawiri and neighboring Taburta in an East Lakes Plain subgroup of the Lakes Plain family;[3] due to the minimal data that was available on the languages at that time.[4] With more data, the connection looks more secure.

Abawiri
Doa
Abawiri
Native toIndonesia
RegionWestern New Guinea
Native speakers
350 (2010)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3flh
Glottologfoau1240
ELPFoau[2]

Like other Lakes Plain languages, Abawiri is notable for being heavily tonal and for its lack of nasal consonants: there are no nasal or nasalized consonants or vowels, even allophonically.[5]

Phonology
Abawiri consonants
Labial Alveolar Alveolo-palatal Velar
Voiceless stop t tʷ <tw> k kʷ <kw>
Voiced stop b bʷ <bw> d dʷ <dw> ʤ <j> ʤʷ <jw> g gʷ <gw>
Fricative f fʷ <fw> s sʷ <sw>
Flap ɾ <r>
Abawiri vowels
Front Back
Extra-high i̝ <yi>
High i y <yu> u
Mid ɛ <e>
Low a ɒ <o>

References
  1. Abawiri at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Endangered Languages Project data for Foau.
  3. Clouse, Duane (1997). "Toward a reconstruction and reclassification of the Lakes Plain languages of Irian Jaya". Papers in Papuan Linguistics. 2: 133–236.
  4. Voorhoeve, Clemens L. (1975). Languages of Irian Jaya: checklist, preliminary classification, language maps, wordlists. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics Series B-31.
  5. Yoder, Brendon (2016). The Abawiri tone system in typological perspective. Paper presented at the 8th Austronesian and Papuan Languages and Linguistics Conference (APLL8), 13–14 May 2016. London: SOAS.

Further reading
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