Lihir language

Lihir
Region	Lihir Island, off New Ireland
Native speakers	13,000 (2000 census)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Western Meso-Melanesian (New Ireland) Tabar Lihir; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	lih
Glottolog	lihi1237[2]

The Lihir language is an Austronesian language spoken in the Lihir island group, in New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea. It is notable for having 5 levels of grammatical number: singular, dual, trial, paucal and plural.[3] It is questionable whether the trial is indeed trial or whether it is paucal, leaving there being a paucal and a greater paucal.[3] Either way, this is the highest number of levels of grammatical number in any language.[3] This distinction appears in both independent pronouns and possessor suffixes.[3] There is some variation in pronunciation and orthography between the main island Niolam, and some of the smaller islands in the group.

Phonology

Lihir has a relatively large vowel phone inventory, in which all vowel phonemes can occur word initially with the exception of the front rounded vowel.[4] Sources are indeterminate with regards to the phonemic status of different surface vowels, although minimal pairs provide evidence for the phonemic status of most vowel qualities.

Vowel Phonemes of Lihir
	Front				Central		Back
	unrounded		rounded		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	ɪ	iː					ʊ	uː
Close-mid		eː		øː	ə			oː
Open-mid	ɛ	ɛː	œ				ɔ
Open					a	aː

Consonant Phonemes of Lihir
	Labial	Alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Stops	p	t	k	7
Prenasalized Stops	mb	nd	ng
Affricates		ts
Fricatives		s	x	h
Nasals	m	n	ng
Liquids		l r

References

Lihir at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Lihir". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
Corbett, Greville G. (2000). Number. Cambridge textbooks in linguistics. Cambridge University Press. p. 25. ISBN 9780521649704. Retrieved 2010-05-26.
Neuhaus, Karl (2015). Grammar of the Lihir Language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Boroko, Port Moresby: Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies. p. 30.

External links

Lihir Phonology, from SIL

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

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

[corbett-3] Corbett, Greville G. (2000). Number. Cambridge textbooks in linguistics. Cambridge University Press. p. 25. ISBN 9780521649704. Retrieved 2010-05-26.

[neuhaus-4] Neuhaus, Karl (2015). Grammar of the Lihir Language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Boroko, Port Moresby: Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies. p. 30.