Ghayavi language

Ghayavi
Boianaki
Native toPapua New Guinea
RegionMilne Bay Province, tip of Cape Vogel
Native speakers
(2,800 cited 2000 census)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3bmk
Glottologghay1237

Ghayavi, or Boianaki, is an Austronesian language of the eastern Papua New Guinean mainland.

Phonology

The phonology of Ghayavi is typical of most Oceanic languages[2] in that its phoneme inventory is characterised by a small number of phonemes and few complex articulations. Ghayavi has sixteen consonant phonemes, and thirteen vowel phonemes (including five diphthongs). Stress by default occurs on the penultimate syllable, although there are some examples of contrastive stress to encode semantic difference. One such minimal pair includes /kɑˈwam/ 'your mouth' and /ˈkɑwam/ 'your spouse'.

Ghayavi Consonant Inventory
Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Labiodental Velar
Plosive Voice b d k kw
Voiceless p t ɾ g gw
Fricative Voice v v ɣ
Voiceless f s
Nasal m n
Approximant w j
Ghayavi Vowel Inventory
Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid e o
Open a

References

  1. ^ Ghayavi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ Lynch, John, Malcolm Ross, and Terry Crowley. 2011. The Oceanic Languages. Abingdon: Routledge.


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