Wano language

Wano
Wano
Region	Puncak Regency and Puncak Jaya Regency, Central Papua
Ethnicity	Wano people [id]
Native speakers	1,000 (2011)
Language family	Trans–New Guinea West Trans–New Guinea (Irian Highlands) Dani Wano; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	wno
Glottolog	wano1243
ELP	Wano

Wano is a Papuan language spoken by the Wano people in Puncak and Puncak Jaya regencies of the Indonesian province of Central Papua.

Phonology

Consonant phonemes^[2]
	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n
Plosive	p b	t d		k	ʔ
Fricative	β
Approximant			j	w

Vowel phonemes^[2]
	Front	Back
High	i	u
Mid	ɛ	ɔ
Close	a

As well as the monophthongs described above, Wano also has seven diphthongs: /i̯a/, /ɛi̯/, /ai̯/, /au̯/, /ɔi̯/, /ɔu̯/, and /ui̯/.^[2]

Allophony

The voiced plosives /b/ and /d/ are imploded to /ɓ/ and /ɗ/ when word-initially and intervocalically.^[2]
When a nasal occurs before /p/, /p/ becomes a prenasalized voiced plosive [ᵐb]. Similarly, when a nasal occurs before /t/ or /k/, they become, respectively, [ⁿd] and [ᵑɡ].^[2]
/t/ and /k/ intervocalically become /ɾ/ and /ɣ/.^[3]
/p/, /k/, /ɡ/, and /ɡ/'s allophone, [ᵑɡ] become labialized before /w/, with /ɡ/ becoming [ɣʷ].^[2]
The sequences /tj/ and /dj/ become the palatal fricatives /ç ʝ/.^[2] However, this analysis more signifies the corresponding Dutch digraphs, since these have no morphological significance, and in the modern orthography these are written as ⟨c⟩ and ⟨j⟩.

Orthography

Here is the orthography used by Willem Burung on his works. These are not necessarily separate letters.

Letter	IPA	Letter	IPA	Letter	IPA
a	[a]	j	[ʝ]	o	[ɔ]
b	[ɓ]	k	[k]	p	[p]
c	[ç]	kʷ	[kʷ]	t	[t]
d	[ɗ]	m	[m]	u	[u]
e	[ɛ]	mb	[ᵐb]	v	[β]
g	[ɣ]	n	[n]	w	[w]
gw	[ɣʷ]	nd	[ⁿd]	y	[j]
i	[i]	ngg	[ᵑɡ]

Grammar

Nouns

Inalienable nouns could be pluralized by suffixing -i (after consonants) or -vi (after vowels), while alienable nouns do not (similar to Indonesian, where pluralization is optional).^[4]^{[page needed]} The inalienable plurals can be postposed with numerals (aburi kena "her two children").

References

^ Wano at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Burung, Willem (2007). The Phonology of Wano (PDF). SIL International. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 February 2014.
^ Burung 2016, p. 44
^ Burung 2016.