Jump to content

Dobu language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Sanaroa language)
Dobu
Dobuan
Native toPapua New Guinea
RegionMilne Bay Province, tip of Cape Vogel
Native speakers
(10,000 cited 1998)[1]
60% monolingual[1]
L2 speakers: 51,000 (2021)[1]
Latin script (Dobuan alphabet)
Dobuan Braille
Language codes
ISO 639-3dob
Glottologdobu1241

Dobu or Dobuan is an Austronesian language spoken in Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. It is a lingua franca for 100,000 people in D'Entrecasteaux Islands.

Phonology

[edit]

Consonants

[edit]
Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
plain lab. plain lab. plain lab.
Plosive voiceless p t k ʔ ʔʷ
voiced b d ɡ ɡʷ
Fricative s
Nasal m n
Flap ɺ
Approximant j w
  • Sounds /p, t, k/ may also be aspirated in free variation as [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ] in all environments.
  • The lateral flap /ɺ/ may fluctuate with an alveolar vibrant flap [ɾ] depending on the dialect of the speaker.
  • /j/ may also fluctuate with a fricative [ʝ] within vocabulary.

Vowels

[edit]
Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid ɛ ɔ
Open a
  • /a/ may be heard as [ʌ] in unstressed syllables.
  • /ɔ/ may be heard as slightly more centralized [ɔ̽] when following labialized consonants in unstressed positions.
  • /u/ may be heard as [ʊ] in unstressed syllables.[2]
[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c Dobu at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. ^ Lithgow, Daphne (1977). Dobu phonemics. Phonologies of Five P.N.G. languages: Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics. pp. 73–96.