Tigak language

Not to be confused with Omo languages.

Tigak
Region	New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea
Native speakers	(6,000 cited 1991) [1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Western Meso-Melanesian (New Ireland) Tungag–Nalik Tigak
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	tgc
Glottolog	tiga1245

Languages of the New Ireland languages group

Tigak (or Omo) is an Austronesian language spoken by about 6,000 people (in 1991) ^[2] in the Kavieng District of New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea.

The Tigak language area includes the provincial capital, Kavieng.

Phonology

Phoneme inventory of the Tigak language:

Consonant sounds

		Labial	Alveolar	Velar
Nasal		m	n	ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t	k
	voiced	b		g
Rhotic			r
Fricative	voiceless	β	s
	lateral		ɮ

/r/ can also be realized as [ ɾ ] allophonically. Both /k,ɡ/ are back-released as [k̠,ɡ̠].

Vowel sounds

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e		ɔ
Low		a

Phoneme	Allophones
/i/	[ i ], [ ɪ ], [ y ]
/e/	[ e ], [ ɛ ]
/a/	[ ʌ ], [ a ]

Two vowels /iu/ in word-initial form can also be released as consonantal allophones [wj]. ^[3]

External links

• Paradisec includes a number of collections with Tigak language materials.

References

1. Tigak at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Gordon, Raymond G. Jr., ed. (2005). "Tigak". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (fifteenth ed.). Dallas: SIL.{{cite book}}: External link in |chapter= (help)
3. Beaumont, Clive H. (1974). The Tigak Language of New Ireland. Australian National University.