Mumeng language

Mumeng
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Morobe Province
Native speakers	(7,100 Kumalu, Zenag, Gorakor cited 1979)[1] 1,700 Patep (2003), 350 Dambi (2000)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Western Oceanic North New Guinea ? Ngero–Vitiaz ? Huon Gulf South Huon Gulf Hote–Buang Buang Mumeng
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously: dac – Dambi ksl – Kumalu ptp – Patep (Ptep, Dengalu) zeg – Zenag (Zenang) goc – Gorakor
Glottolog	mume1239
ELP	Dengalu
Mumeng is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Mumeng is a dialect chain of the Austronesian family in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. Dambi–Kumalu and Patep–Zenag–Gorakor have a degree of mutual intelligibility. Kapin may belong as well.

Phonology

The following is of the Patep dialect:^[2]

Consonants

		Bilabial			Alveolar		Palatal	Back-velar		Glottal
		plain	pal.	lab.	plain	pal.		plain	lab.
Plosive	voiceless	p	pʲ	pʷ	t	tʲ		k̠	k̠ʷ
	prenasal	ᵐb	ᵐbʲ	ᵐbʷ	ⁿd	ⁿdʲ		ᵑɡ̠	ᵑɡ̠ʷ
Affricate					ⁿdz
Fricative	voiceless				s					h
	voiced/pren.	β	βʲ		(ⁿz)			ɣ̠
Nasal		m	mʲ	mʷ	n	nʲ		ŋ̠	ŋ̠ʷ
Lateral					l
Approximant		β̞					j

• The prenasal affricate /ⁿdz/ may also fluctuate to a prenasal fricative [ⁿz] in free variation among speech.
• /ᵐb, ⁿd, ᵑɡ̠/ are heard as prenasal voiceless stops [ᵐp, ⁿt, ᵑk̠] when in word-final positions.
• /k̠/ is mostly heard as a glottal stop [ʔ] in word-final positions.
• /l/ may be heard as fricativized [l̝] or more fronted as [l̟] in word-final position.^[2]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
High-mid	e		o
Low-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Low		a

References

1. Dambi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
   Kumalu at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
   Patep (Ptep, Dengalu) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
   Zenag (Zenang) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
   Gorakor at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Lauck, Linda M.; Adams, Karen L. (1975). A tentative phonemic statement of Patep. In Richard Loving (ed.), Phonologies of five Austronesian languages: Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics. pp. 71–128.