Nii language

Nii
Ek Nii
Native toPapua New Guinea
RegionWestern Highlands Province
Native speakers
(12,000 cited 1991)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3nii
Glottologniii1240

Nii is a Trans–New Guinea language of the Chimbu–Wahgi branch spoken in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.

Nii has an unusual number of lateral consonants: a typical alveolar flap, /ɺ/, plus both dental and velar lateral fricatives, /ɬ̪/ and /𝼄/, which are voiced between vowels and do not occur in initial position.[2][3]

Phonology

Vowels

Front Central Back
High i u~ʊ
Near-High ɪ~ᵻ
Mid ɛ o~ɔ
Open a

Consonants

Nii consonants (Stucky 1973)
Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar
Nasal m n̪ n ŋ
Prenasalized ᵐb ⁿdz ⁿd ᵑɡ
Oral p s̪ r k
Lateral ɬ̪ ɺ 𝼄
Approximant w j
Nii consonant allophones (Stucky 1973)
Phoneme word-
initial		 inter-
vocalic		 word-
final		 utterance-
final
/p/ [p]~[b] [pᵊ]~[pʰ] [pʰ]
/s/ [s̪]~[t̪s̪]~[t̪] [s̪]~[t̪] [s̪]~[t̪s̪]
/r/ [t]~[r](?)
(after another word)		 [ɾ]~[r] [r̥] (after a vowel)
/k/ [k]~[ɡ] [kᵊ]~[kʰ] [kʰ]
/mb/ [mb] [mb]~[mp] [mpᵊ]~[mpʰ] [mpʰ]
/ndz/ [n̪d̪z]~[n̪t̪s]*** [n̪d̪z]~[n̪t̪s]~[n̪s]
/nd/ [nd]~[nt] [ntᵊ]~[ntʰ] [ntʰ]~[nt𐞩̥]
/ŋɡ/ [ŋk]~[ŋɡ] [ŋkᵊ]~[ŋkʰ] [ŋkʰ]
/ɬ/ NA [ɮ̪]* [ɬ̪]
/ɺ/ NA [ɺ]** NA
/𝼄/ NA [ʟ̝] [𝼄]~[𝼄ᵊ] [𝼄]
* /ɬ/ is evidentally [l̪] before a consonant
** /ɺ/ is [l] before /r/; in word-final position this sequence becomes [lt𐞩̥] ~ [ltʰ].
*** /ndz/ may have a vocoid release [n̪d̪zᶦ] at the end of a syllable before a consonant.

The account of the initial allophones of /r/ is confused, and some of the other positions are not completely clear.

References

  1. ^ Nii at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ Foley, 1986:63, The Papuan languages of New Guinea
  3. ^ https://www.sil.org/system/files/reapdata/23/85/34/23853451869958568538398841625100014874/Nii_Phonology.pdf [bare URL PDF]

Further reading

  • Stucky, Al (1994). "Organised Phonology Data" (PDF). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  • Stucky, Alfred and Dellene Stucky 1973. "Nii phonology", in Alan Healey (ed.), Studies in languages of the Ok family, "Workpapers in Papua New Guinea Languages" 2, pp. 37-78. [1], [2]


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