Mengen language

Mengen
Poeng
Native toPapua New Guinea
RegionNew Britain
Native speakers
(8,400 cited 1982)[1]
Dialects
  • Mengen
  • Poeng
Language codes
ISO 639-3mee
Glottologmeng1267

Mengen and Poeng are rather divergent dialects of an Austronesian language of New Britain in Papua New Guinea.

Phonology

Consonants
Labial Alveolar Dorsal Uvular
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive voiceless p t (k) q
voiced b (d) g
Fricative s
Rhotic r
Lateral l
Glide (w) (j)
  • Both palatalization and labialization [ʲ, ʷ] is said to occur in all consonants. Palatalized consonants only occur before back vowels, and labialized consonant sounds may occur before all vowels accept /u/.
  • /k/ is typically pronounced as uvular [q], but can also be heard as a velar [k] in free variation.
  • Gemination or length, may also occur among consonant sounds.
  • Sounds /b, ɡ/ are pronounced as voiced stops [b, ɡ], but are also heard as fricatives [β, ɣ] in intervocalic position.
  • /r/ may have variation between a trill [r], a tap [ɾ], or a voiced stop [d] within vocabulary.
  • Sounds /j, w/ are said to exist as a result of palatalization or labialization, but only in very few root words in word-initial position.
Vowels
Front Back
High i u
Mid e o
Low a
  • Sounds /a, o/ are raised to [ʌ, o̝] within the environment of consonant length.[2]

References

  1. ^ Mengen at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ Rath, Daniel D. (1993). Mengen phonology essentials. John M. Clifton (ed.), Phonologies of Austronesian languages 2: Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics. pp. 71–98.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: publisher location (link)


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