Central Asmat is a Papuan language of West New Guinea, spoken by the Asmat people.
Dialects
Central Asmat has a number of dialects, which are:[2]
- Keenok
- Sokoni
- Keenakap
- Kawenak (subdialects: Simai, Kainak, Mismam, Mecemup)
Yaosakor Asmat, assigned its own ISO code, is a variety of Central Asmat, not a distinct language.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ||
| Plosive | p | t | tʃ | k |
| Fricative | f | s | ʝ | |
| Rhotic | r | |||
| Approximant | w |
- /p/ can be heard as a fricative [ɸ] when in intervocalic positions, as [pʷ] in the speech of older speakers when preceding /e/.
- /tʃ/ can be heard as a palatalized [tʲ] when in word-final positions following /i/.
- /k/ can be heard as a fricative [x] when following a vowel and preceding a consonant.
- /s/ can be heard as fricatives [θ] or [ʃ] among some older speakers.
- /r/ can be heard as a flap [ɾ] in word-medial and word-final positions.
- /ʝ/ can be heard as [dʒ] or [j] in word-initial positions.
- Nasals /m, n/ may fluctuate to voiced stops [b, d] in word-initial positions, and as prenasal stops [ᵐb, ⁿd] when in syllable-initial positions.[3]
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Low | a |
| Phoneme | Allophones |
|---|---|
| /i/ | [i], [y], [ɪ] |
| /e/ | [e], [ɛ], [ø] |
| /a/ | [ä], [a], [æ] |
| /o/ | [o], [ɤ], [ɔ] |
| /u/ | [u], [ʉ] |
References
- ^ Central Asmat at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Yaosakor Asmat at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) - ^ Usher, Timothy; Suter, Edgar (2020). "The Asmat-Muli Languages of Southwestern New Guinea" (PDF). Language & Linguistics in Melanesia. 38. Port Moresby: Journal of the Linguistic Society of Papua New Guinea. ISSN 0023-1959.
- ^ Voorhoeve, Clemens L. (1965). The Flamingo Bay Dialect of the Asmat Language. The Hague: M.Nijhoff.