Western Dani language
Western Dani, or Laani, is the most populous Papuan language in Indonesian New Guinea. It is spoken by the Lani people in the province of Papua. The Swart Valley tribes are called Oeringoep and Timorini in literature from the 1920s, but those names are no longer used.
| Western Dani | |
|---|---|
| Laani | |
| Region | Highlands of Papua Province, Indonesia |
| Ethnicity | Lani |
Native speakers | (180,000 cited 1993)[1] |
Trans–New Guinea
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | dnw |
| Glottolog | west2594 |
Phonology
The phonology of the Western Dani language:[2]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | lab. | |||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p (pʰ) | t (tʰ) | k (kʰ) | kʷ (kʷʰ) | ʔ |
| prenasal | mb | nd | ŋɡ | ŋɡʷ | ||
| Fricative | β | ɣ | ɣʷ | |||
| Flap | ɾ | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | ||||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Approximant | w | ɹ | ||||
At the beginning of words, stops sound aspirated. An intervocalic /ɣ/ is pronounced as [ʁ], and a /ɹ/ before a high vowel becomes a fricative [z].
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i iː | u uː | |
| Mid | e eː | ɒ ɒː | |
| Low | ɐ ɐː |
Vowels /i, u, ɒ/ have allophones, [ɪ, ʊ, ɔ].
References
- Western Dani at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- Barclay, Peter (2008). A Grammar of Western Dani.
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