Gimi language
Gimi (Labogai) is a Papuan language spoken in Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea.
| Gimi | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Papua New Guinea |
| Region | Eastern Highlands Province |
Native speakers | (22,500 cited 1981)[1] |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | gim |
| Glottolog | gimi1243 |
Phonology
Gimi has 5 vowels and 12 consonants.[2] It has voiceless and voiced glottal consonants where related languages have /k/ and /ɡ/. The voiceless glottal is simply a glottal stop [ʔ]. The voiced consonant behaves phonologically like a glottal stop, but does not have full closure. Phonetically it is a creaky-voiced glottal approximant [ʔ̞].[3]
Consonants
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | ʔ |
| voiced | b | d | ʔ̞ | |
| Nasal | m | n | ||
| Tap/Flap | ɾ | |||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | h | |
| voiced | z | |||
Allophony
/p/ occurs word initially only in loanwords.
/b/ can surface as either [b] or [β] in free variation.
/z/ becomes [s] before /ɑ/.
/t/ and /ɾ/ tend to fluctuate with one another word initially.
Syllables
The syllable structure is (C)V(G), where G is either /ʔ/ or /ʔ̞/.
Tone
The final vowel of a word takes either a level or falling tone. The falling tone is written with an acute accent.
| ak "seed" | ák "armband" | ||
| nimi "bird" | nimí "louse" |
Orthography
Gimi uses the Latin script.[2]
| Letter | Aa | Bb | Cc | Dd | Ee | Gg | Hh | Ii | Mm | Nn | Oo | Pp | Rr | Ss | Tt | Uu | Zz |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPA | ɑ | b | ʔ | d | e | ʔ̞ | h | i | m | n | o | p | ɾ | s | t | u | z |
References
- Gimi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- Gimi Organised Phonology Data. [Manuscript]
- Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 77–78. ISBN 978-0-631-19815-4.