Mandara language

Not to be confused with Mandara language (Chadic).

Mandara
Tabar
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Tabar Group, New Ireland Province
Native speakers	(4,000 cited 2000 census) [1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Western Meso-Melanesian (New Ireland) Tabar Mandara
Dialects	Simberi Tatau Tabar
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	tbf
Glottolog	mand1440

Mandara, also known as Tabar, is an Austronesian language spoken on the Tabar Group of islands, New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea. Three dialects have been identified, Simberi, Tatau and Tabar, corresponding to the three main islands in the group. ^{[1] [2]} Recently,^{[ when? ]} a written form of Mandara has been made by a Korean missionary. So far, about 3,000 people are literate in this form of Mandara, and a Bible has been published in it as well.

Phonology

The Simberi-Northern Tatau dialect has 14 phonemic consonants and 7 phonemic vowels. The language has four syllable patterns: V, CV, VC and CVC. ^{[3] : 8}

Consonants

		Bi­labial		Alveolar	Velar
Nasal		/m/		/n/	/ŋ/
Plosive	Voiceless	/p/		/t/	/k/
	Voiced pre-nasalized	/ᵐb/		/ⁿd/	/ᵑɡ/
Affricate				/t͡s/
Fricative		/β/		/s/
Flap				/ɾ/
Lateral				/l/

• /p/, /t/ and /k/ are non-aspirated. ^{[3] : 9}

Stress

The final syllable of a word receives stress. There is no evidence of phonemic stress. ^{[3] : 9}

References

1. Mandara at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. Brown, Keith, ed. (2006). Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics (PDF). Elsevier. p. i. ISBN   978-0-08-044854-1.
3. Hong, Steven; Hong, Holly (2003). "Grammar Essentials of the Mandara Language of New Ireland Province". www.language-archives.org. Retrieved 2025-02-28.