Fuyug language

Last updated
Fuyug
Region Papua New Guinea
Native speakers
14,000 (2003) [1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 fuy
Glottolog fuyu1242

Fuyug (Fuyuge, Fuyughe, Mafulu) is a language of Papua New Guinea spoken in the Central Province of the country. The language's 14,000 speakers live in 300 villages in the Goilala District. [2]

Contents

Phonology

The usual orthographic convention used to transcribe Fuyug is to use a for /ɑ/, e for /ɛ/, y for /j/, and the corresponding IPA characters for the remaining phonemes.

Vowels

Fuyug possesses five vowel phonemes. [3]

Front Back
Close iu
Mid ɛo
Open ɑ

The vowel /ɛ/ is pronounced as the diphthong [ɛi̯] when word-final as well as before a word-final consonant. For example, ateg ("truth") is pronounced [ɑˈtɛi̯ɡ] and ode ("where") as [oˈdɛi̯]. [4]

All vowels are nasalised before a nasal consonant, as in in ("pandanus") [ˈĩn], ung ("nose") [ˈũŋɡ], em ("house") [ˈẽĩ̯m]. [5]

Consonants

Fuyug has 14 consonant phonemes. [6]

Labial Coronal Velar
Plosive Voiceless ptk
Voiced bdɡ
Fricative Voicelessfs
Voicedv
Nasal mn
Approximant wj
Liquid l

The voiceless plosive are aspirated in a word-final position and before /i/: endanti ("outside") [ɛ̃nˈdɑ̃ntʰi], oki ("fire") [ˈokʰi], eyak ("return") [ɛˈjɑkʰ]. [6]

The nasal phoneme /n/ assimilates before a velar consonant becoming [ŋ] : yangos ("rain") [jɑ̃ŋˈɡos]. [7]

The pronunciation of the liquid /l/ is in free variation between a lateral [l] and a flap [ɾ]. However, with the exception of words of foreign origin where the word in the source language is written with an r, this is represented in the orthography as l. [4]

Syllables

Fuyug syllables come in the shape (C)V(C)(C). There cannot be more than two consonants adjacent to one another word-internally and the only final clusters permitted are mb, nd and ng. Within a word vowels may not follow one another. [8]

Stress

Stress in Fuyug is predictable. Stress falls on the final syllable in mono- and disyllabic words and on the antepenult in words of three of four syllables. Affixes do not alter the stressed syllable. [9]

Morphophonology

Certain suffixes (notably the illative -ti) cause a change in the end of the word to which it is attached: [10]

Grammar

Personal pronouns

Fuyug has personal pronouns for three numbers (singular, dual, plural) but not gender distinction.

PersonSingularDualPlural
1stnadadi
2ndnuyayi
3rdhutumu

These pronouns can take four different suffixes: the genitive -l or -le, the emphatic -ni, the comitative -noy and the contrastive -v. [11]

Numerals

Numerals in Fuyug are very restricted, having only fidan ("one") and yovalo ("two"). The numbers 3, 4 and 5 are composed of 1 and 2:

After five English numerals are used (numbers less than five often do so as well). The quantifier huka ("a lot") is also used after three. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allophone</span> Phone used to pronounce a single phoneme

In phonology, an allophone is one of multiple possible spoken sounds – or phones – used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plosive and the aspirated form are allophones for the phoneme, while these two are considered to be different phonemes in some languages such as Central Thai. Similarly, in Spanish, and are allophones for the phoneme, while these two are considered to be different phonemes in English.

Unless otherwise noted, statements in this article refer to Standard Finnish, which is based on the dialect spoken in the former Häme Province in central south Finland. Standard Finnish is used by professional speakers, such as reporters and news presenters on television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern Sámi</span> Most widely spoken of all Sámi languages

Northern Sámi or North Sámi is the most widely spoken of all Sámi languages. The area where Northern Sámi is spoken covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. The number of Northern Sámi speakers is estimated to be somewhere between 15,000 and 25,000. About 2,000 of these live in Finland and between 5,000 and 6,000 in Sweden, with the remaining portions being in Norway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tunica language</span> Extinct language isolate of the Mississippi Valley

The Tunica or Luhchi Yoroni language is a language isolate that was spoken in the Central and Lower Mississippi Valley in the United States by Native American Tunica peoples. There are no native speakers of the Tunica language, but there were 32 second-language speakers in 2017, and as of 2023, there are 60 second-language speakers.

Japanese phonology is the system of sounds used in the pronunciation of the Japanese language. Unless otherwise noted, this article describes the standard variety of Japanese based on the Tokyo dialect.

Bhutia is a language of the Tibeto-Burman languages spoken by the Bhutia people in Sikkim, India, and in parts of Koshi, Nepal. It is one of the official language in Sikkim.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastern Pomo language</span> Pomoan language

Eastern Pomo, also known as Clear Lake Pomo, is a nearly extinct Pomoan language spoken around Clear Lake in Lake County, California by one of the Pomo peoples.

The Yimas language is spoken by the Yimas people, who populate the Sepik River Basin region of Papua New Guinea. It is spoken primarily in Yimas village, Karawari Rural LLG, East Sepik Province. It is a member of the Lower-Sepik language family. All 250-300 speakers of Yimas live in two villages along the lower reaches of the Arafundi River, which stems from a tributary of the Sepik River known as the Karawari River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portuguese orthography</span> Alphabet and spelling

Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes. The diaeresis was abolished by the last Orthography Agreement. Accented letters and digraphs are not counted as separate characters for collation purposes.

The Tawbuid language is a language spoken by Tawbuid Mangyans in the province of Mindoro in the Philippines. It is divided into eastern and western dialects. The Bangon Mangyans also speak the western dialect of Tawbuid.

Tamil phonology is characterised by the presence of "true-subapical" retroflex consonants and multiple rhotic consonants. Its script does not distinguish between voiced and unvoiced consonants; phonetically, voice is assigned depending on a consonant's position in a word, voiced intervocalically and after nasals except when geminated. Tamil phonology permits few consonant clusters, which can never be word initial.

The Gujarati language is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian state of Gujarat. Much of its phonology is derived from Sanskrit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nukak language</span> Endangered indigenous language of Colombia

The Nukak language is a language of uncertain classification, perhaps part of the macrofamily Puinave-Maku. It is very closely related to Kakwa.

Baiso or Bayso is a Lowland East Cushitic language belonging to the Omo–Tana subgroup, and is spoken in Ethiopia, in the region around Lake Abaya.

Ske is an endangered language of south-western Pentecost island in Vanuatu. Ske is an Oceanic language.

This article covers the phonology of the Uyghur language. Uyghur, a Turkic language spoken primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region features both vowel harmony and vowel reduction.

Afitti is a language spoken on the eastern side of Jebel el-Dair, a solitary rock formation in the North Kordofan province of Sudan. Although the term ‘Dinik’ can be used to designate the language regardless of cultural affiliation, people in the villages of the region readily recognize the terms ‘Ditti’ and ‘Afitti.’ There are approximately 4,000 speakers of the Afitti language and its closest linguistic neighbor is the Nyimang language, spoken west of Jebel el-Dair in the Nuba Mountains of the North Kordofan province of Sudan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ute dialect</span> Colorado River Numic dialect used in the US

Ute is a dialect of the Colorado River Numic language, spoken by the Ute people. Speakers primarily live on three reservations: Uintah-Ouray in northeastern Utah, Southern Ute in southwestern Colorado, and Ute Mountain in southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah. Ute is part of the Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Other dialects in this dialect chain are Chemehuevi and Southern Paiute. As of 2010, there were 1,640 speakers combined of all three dialects Colorado River Numic. Ute's parent language, Colorado River Numic, is classified as a threatened language, although there are tribally-sponsored language revitalization programs for the dialect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bukid language</span> Manobo language spoken in the Philippines

The Bukid language, Binukid or Bukidnon, is an Austronesian language spoken by indigenous peoples of Northern Mindanao in the southern Philippines. The word Bukid means 'mountain' or 'highland' while Binukid means 'in the manner, or style, of the mountain or highland'. In Bukidnon province, it is referred to as Higaonon.

Proto-Finnic or Proto-Baltic-Finnic is the common ancestor of the Finnic languages, which include the national languages Finnish and Estonian. Proto-Finnic is not attested in any texts, but has been reconstructed by linguists. Proto-Finnic is itself descended ultimately from Proto-Uralic.

References

  1. Fuyug at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. Bradshaw 2007 , p. 2
  3. Bradshaw 2007 , p. 14
  4. 1 2 Bradshaw 2007 , p. 17
  5. Bradshaw 2007 , p. 18
  6. 1 2 Bradshaw 2007 , p. 15
  7. Bradshaw 2007 , p. 16
  8. Bradshaw 2007 , pp. 21–24
  9. Bradshaw 2007 , p. 24
  10. Bradshaw 2007 , pp. 24–27
  11. Bradshaw 2007 , pp. 39–41
  12. Bradshaw 2007 , p. 45

Bibliography