Jump to content

Biritai language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Biritai)
Biritai
Aliki
Native toIndonesia
RegionBiri village in East Central Mambermano District, Mamberamo Raya Regency, Papua
Native speakers
(250 cited 1988)[1]
Lakes Plain
  • Central
    • Biritai
Language codes
ISO 639-3bqq
Glottologbiri1259
ELPBiritai

Biritai (Biri) is a Lakes Plain language of Papua, Indonesia. It is named after Biri village in East Central Mambermano District, Mamberamo Raya Regency.[2]

Phonology

[edit]

The following inventory is taken from Donohue (2017),[3] with a very small consonant inventory typical of the Lakes Plain languages.

Consonants

[edit]
Labial Coronal
Stop voiceless t
voiced b d
Fricative ɸ s

In an earlier paper co-authored by Donohue,[4] the approximants /j w/ are also included as phonemes. The authors note that Biritai is typologically unusual for missing series of velar, nasal and liquid consonants.

Vowels

[edit]
Front Back
unrounded rounded
Close i ɯ u
Close-mid e
Open-mid ɛ ɔ
Open a

Tone

[edit]

Biritai is tonal.[citation needed]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Biritai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2019). "Indonesia languages". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (22nd ed.). Dallas: SIL International.
  3. ^ Donohue, Mark. (2017) "Introduction to Typology 4: investigating phonological typology" (archived link). Living Tongues Institute, LSA Institute Kentucky, 2017 July 19.
  4. ^ Ross, Bill; Donohue, Mark (2011). "The many origins of diversity and complexity in phonology" (PDF). Linguistic Typology (15): 251–266.