Yagwoia language

Yagwoia
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Morobe, Eastern Highlands, Gulf provinces
Native speakers	10,000 (2005) [1]
Language family	Trans–New Guinea Angan Yagwoia
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ygw
Glottolog	yagw1240

Yagwoia (Yeghuye), or Kokwaiyakwa, is an Angan language of Papua New Guinea. Dialects are named after the five ethnicities, Iwalaqamalje, Hiqwaye, Hiqwase, Gwase, Heqwangilye (Yeqwangilje dialect).

Distribution

Yagwoia is spoken in: ^[1]

• Eastern Highlands Province: Iqwalaqamalje
• Gulf Province: Gwase
• Morobe Province: Hiqwase, Hiqwaye, and Yeqwangilje

Phonology

Consonants ^[2]

	Labial	Alveolar	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Plosive	p	t	k	q	ʔ ⟨'⟩
Fricative		s			h
Nasal	m	n	ŋ ⟨ng⟩
Approximant	w	l	j ⟨y⟩

• /p t k/ tend to become voiced [b d g] in clusters with nasals or /l/.
• /m n ŋ l/ can be syllabic.
• /s/ is in free variation with [z]. Older speakers tend to pronounce it as [ts~dz].
• /t/ can often be heard as [r].

Vowels ^[2]

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ	u
Mid	e		o
Low		a aː

• /ɨ/ is rare.

Additionally, the following diphthongs have been observed: /ei/, /ai/, /ae/, /au/, /ou/.

Yagwoia is tonal, distinguishing high and low tone. However, tone has a low functional load, and so remains unwritten. ^[2]

References

1. Yagwoia at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. Trainum, Mike (1992). Tanggu Organised Phonology Data. SIL International.

External links

• Paradisec have an open access collection of Yagwoia recordings. They also have a collection of Jadran Mimica recordings that contain some Yagwoia.