Biritai language

Last updated
Biritai
Aliki
Native to Indonesia
RegionBiri village in East Central Mambermano District, Mamberamo Raya Regency, Papua
Native speakers
(250 cited 1988) [1]
Lakes Plain
  • Central
    • Biritai
Language codes
ISO 639-3 bqq
Glottolog biri1259
ELP Biritai

Biritai (Biri) is a Lakes Plain language of Papua, Indonesia. It is named after Biri village in East Central Mambermano District, Mamberamo Raya Regency. [2]

Contents

Phonology

The following inventory is taken from Donohue (2017), [3] with a very small consonant inventory typical of the Lakes Plain languages.

Consonants

Labial Coronal
Stop voiceless t
voiced b d
Fricative ɸ s

In an earlier paper co-authored by Donohue, [4] the approximants /j w/ are also included as phonemes. The authors note that Biritai is typologically unusual for missing series of velar, nasal and liquid consonants.

Vowels

Front Back
unrounded rounded
Close i ɯ u
Close-mid e
Open-mid ɛ ɔ
Open a

Tone

Biritai is tonal.[ citation needed ]

References

  1. ↑ Biritai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ↑ Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2019). "Indonesia languages". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (22nd ed.). Dallas: SIL International.
  3. ↑ Donohue, Mark. (2017) "Introduction to Typology 4: investigating phonological typology" (archived link). Living Tongues Institute, LSA Institute Kentucky, 2017 July 19.
  4. ↑ Ross, Bill; Donohue, Mark (2011). "The many origins of diversity and complexity in phonology" (PDF). Linguistic Typology (15): 251–266.
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