Tarama language

The Tarama language is a Japonic language spoken on the islands of Tarama and nearly depopulated Minna, two of the Miyako Islands of Japan. It is closely related to Miyakoan, but intelligibility is low. It is only spoken by elderly people.

Tarama
Native toJapan
RegionTarama, Okinawa
Native speakers
mostly over age 60?
Dialects
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
Glottologtara1319

Phonology

Vowels

Tarama has four main vowels, and two marginal vowels /e, o/ found in a restricted set of words.

Tarama vowels
iɨu
(e)(o)
a

/ɨ/ is [s̩] between voiceless consonants, otherwise [ˢɨ] after plosives, and [ɨ] elsewhere:

[ps̩tu] 'person', [kˢɨːlu] 'yellow', [mɨːɡɨ] 'right'

The sequences /*tɨ/, /*dɨ/, /*nɨ/, /*lɨ/ do not occur. They have changed to /tsɨ/, /zɨ/, /n̩/ and /l/ ([ɭ̆]).

Consonants

Tarama does have voiced stops:

Tarama consonants
LabialAlveolarVelar
Nasal mn
Plosive p bt dk ɡ
Affricate ts  
Fricative f vs z
Rhotic ɭ̆/ ⟨l⟩
Approximant w~ʋj

The 'l' is a retroflex lateral flap, also found in the Irabu language (Jarosz p. 43). /m n f v s z l/ occur as syllable codas, as in pail 'to grow' (Japanese haeru), psks 'to pull' (Japanese hiku).

The two nasals may be syllabic, as in mm 'potato' and nna 'rope'. 'Onsets' include geminate consonants, as in ssam 'loose' and ffa 'child'. Otherwise, the only consonant clusters are /Cj/, as in kjuu 'today', sjata 'sugar'. Sonorants can end syllables and words, as in kan 'crab', mim 'ear', and tul 'bird'. Vowel sequences include long vowels Vː and the 'diphthongs' Vi, and Vɨ. This structure has been analyzed as a syllable, but initial geminate consonants, long vowels and diphthongs are all bimoraic, and codas are moraic as well, so that e.g. ssam is three moras ([s̩sam̩]. A phonological word must be at least two moras long.

References
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