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Mwakai language

Coordinates: 4°15′44″S 143°55′03″E / 4.262293°S 143.917638°E / -4.262293; 143.917638 (Mongol)
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Mongol
Mwakai
Native toPapua New Guinea
RegionEast Sepik Province
Native speakers
340 (2003)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3mgt
Glottologmong1344
ELPMongol-Kaimba
Coordinates: 4°15′44″S 143°55′03″E / 4.262293°S 143.917638°E / -4.262293; 143.917638 (Mongol)

Mongol, also known as Mwakai, is a Keram language of Papua New Guinea. Despite the name, it is not related to Mongolian, which is spoken in East Asia.

It is spoken in Mongol village (4°15′44″S 143°55′03″E / 4.262293°S 143.917638°E / -4.262293; 143.917638 (Mongol)), Keram Rural LLG, East Sepik Province.[2][3]

Phonology

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Mwakai has 12 consonants and six vowels, shown in the tables below. This section follows Barlow (2020).[4]

Mwakai consonants
Labial Coronal Palatal Velar
Obstruent voiceless /p/ /s/ /k/
voiced /ᵐb/ /ⁿd/ /ⁿd͡ʒ/ /ᵑɡ/
Nasal voiced /m/ /n/
Sonorant voiced /w/ /r/ /j/

The sound [t] only occurs in borrowings, with earlier */t/ having historically become /r/; this is belied by the realisation of word-final /r/ as [t~r~l]. /s/ patterns as a palatal consonant, with the optional allophone [ʃ]; there is some interplay between the sounds /s/ and /ⁿd͡ʒ/ in casual speech, with the contrast sometimes being neutralised in favour or either realisation. [ɲ] is a marginal phone which appears in borrowings and occasional as a realisation of /n/ before /i/. /r/ varies between [r ~ ɾ ~ l] and /p/ is occasionally realised as [ɸ].

/w/ and /j/ have a limited distribution, appearing mostly word-initially or -finally, and only rarely intervocalically. Some instances of /j/ and most instances of /w/ may be merely epenthetic, suggesting that Mwakai is in the process of losing its glide phonemes.

Mwakai vowels
Front Central Back
Close /i/ /u/
Mid /e/ /ə/ /o/
Open /a/

/i u e/ are rarely realised as their cardinal qualities and may approach [ɨ~ɪ ɨ~ʊ ɛ~ə] especially when unstressed.

References

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  1. ^ Mongol at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2019). "Papua New Guinea languages". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (22nd ed.). Dallas: SIL International.
  3. ^ United Nations in Papua New Guinea (2018). "Papua New Guinea Village Coordinates Lookup". Humanitarian Data Exchange. 1.31.9.
  4. ^ Barlow, Russel (2020). "Notes on Mwakai, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea". Journal of the Linguistic Society of Papua New Guinea. 38.

Further reading

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