Dobu language

Dobu
Dobu
Dobuan
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Milne Bay Province, tip of Cape Vogel
Native speakers	(10,000 cited 1998); 60% monolingual; L2 speakers: 51,000 (2021)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Western Oceanic Papuan Tip Nuclear Papuan Tip North Papuan Mainland – D'Entrecasteaux Dobu–Duau Dobu; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Writing system	Latin script (Dobuan alphabet); Dobuan Braille
Language codes
ISO 639-3	dob
Glottolog	dobu1241

Last updated January 02, 2026

Dobu or Dobuan is an Austronesian language spoken in Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. It is a lingua franca for 100,000 people in D'Entrecasteaux Islands.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial		Alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
		plain	lab.	Alveolar	Palatal	plain	lab.	plain	lab.
Plosive	voiceless	p	pʷ	t		k	kʷ	ʔ	ʔʷ
Plosive	voiced	b	bʷ	d		ɡ	ɡʷ
Fricative				s
Nasal		m	mʷ	n
Flap				ɺ
Approximant					j	w

Sounds /p,t,k/ may also be aspirated in free variation as [pʰ,tʰ,kʰ] in all environments.
The lateral flap /ɺ/ may fluctuate with an alveolar vibrant flap [ɾ] depending on the dialect of the speaker.
/j/ may also fluctuate with a fricative [ʝ] within vocabulary.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open		a

/a/ may be heard as [ʌ] in unstressed syllables.
/ɔ/ may be heard as slightly more centralized [ɔ̽] when following labialized consonants in unstressed positions.
/u/ may be heard as [ʊ] in unstressed syllables.^[2]

External links

An open access collection of singing in Dobu is available through Paradisec.
Historical open access collections of recordings in Dobu are available through Paradisec, including the Malcome Ross collection (MR1) and two Arthur Campbell collections (AC1 and AC2)

References

1 2 3 Dobu at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
↑ Lithgow, Daphne (1977). Dobu phonemics. Phonologies of Five P.N.G. languages: Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics. pp. 73–96.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)

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[e25-1] 1 2 3 Dobu at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)

[2] Lithgow, Daphne (1977). Dobu phonemics. Phonologies of Five P.N.G. languages: Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics. pp. 73–96.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)

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