Sikaritai language

Sikaritai
	Tori Aikwakai
Native to	Indonesia
Region	New Guinea
Native speakers	(800 cited 1993)[1]
Language family	Lakes Plain Tariku East Tariku Aliki Sikaritai; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	tty
Glottolog	sika1263[2]

Sikaritai (Sikwari) is a Lakes Plain language of Papua, Indonesia. It is named after Sikari village. It's gone by various names: Aikwakai, Araikurioko, Ati, Tori, Tori Aikwakai.

Sikaritai, Obokuitai, and Eritai constitute a dialect cluster.

Phonology

The following discussion is based on Martin (1991).^[3]

Consonants

	Labial	Coronal	Velar
Stop	b	t d	k kʷ
Fricative	ɸ	s
Approximant	w

This small consonant inventory is typical of Lakes Plain languages.^[4] The complete lack of nasals is also a feature of these languages.

Vowels

Sikaritai has six vowels.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid-high	e
Mid	ɛ		o
Low		a

Many other Lakes Plain languages have developed a series of extra high "fricativized" vowels from the loss of a final consonant.^[4] In Sikaritai the final consonants have been retained; however, extra-high [i] and [u] appear as allophones of /i/ and /u/ before final /g/ and /d/. Martin postulates that Sikaritai is in the process of developing contrastive fricativized vowels as other Lakes Plain languages have done.

Tone

The language has a two-height tone system with H and L tone. More than one tonal element can appear on a single syllable.

Syllables

The syllable template is (C)(C)V(V)(C).

References

↑ Sikaritai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Sikaritai". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
↑ Martin, David (1991). "Sikaritai phonology". Workpapers in Indonesian Languages and Cultures. 9: 91–120.
1 2 Clouse, Duane (1997). "Toward a reconstruction and reclassification of the Lakes Plain languages of Irian Jaya". Papers in Papuan Linguistics. 3: 133–236.

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[e18-1] Sikaritai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)

[Glottolog-2] Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Sikaritai". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

[3] Martin, David (1991). "Sikaritai phonology". Workpapers in Indonesian Languages and Cultures. 9: 91–120.

[:0-4] 1 2 Clouse, Duane (1997). "Toward a reconstruction and reclassification of the Lakes Plain languages of Irian Jaya". Papers in Papuan Linguistics. 3: 133–236.