Titan language

Titan
Manus
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Manus & neighboring islands
Native speakers	(3,900 cited 1992)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Admiralty Islands Eastern Admiralty Islands Manus East Manus Titan
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ttv
Glottolog	tita1241

Titan, also known as Manus, is an East Manus language of the Austronesian language family spoken in the southeastern part of Manus Island, New Guinea, and neighboring islands by about 4,000 people.

Titan has a bilabial trill and prenasalized consonants, as in [ⁿrakeiʔin] 'girls' and [ᵐʙutukei] 'wooden plate'.

Phonology

Phonology of the Titan language:

Consonant sounds

	Labial		Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
	plain	lab.
Plosive	p	(pʷ)	t	c	k	(ʔ)
Nasal	m	(mʷ)	n	ɲ	ŋ
Fricative	v		s			h
Prenasalized Trill	ᵐʙ		ⁿdr
Trill			r
Lateral			l
Approximant	w			j

Consonant sounds in parentheses are only inferred to exist in Titan, or to exist in other dialects of Titan.

Vowel sounds

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
	ɪ
Mid	e		o
Low		a

An /e/ sound may also be interchangeable with an open-mid sound /ɛ/.

Further reading

• Bowern, Claire (2011). Sivisa Titan: Sketch grammar, texts, vocabulary based on material collected by P. Josef Meier and Po Minis. Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication No. 38. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
• Ladefoged, Peter (2005). Vowels and Consonants (2nd ed.) Blackwell.

External links

• Kaipuleohone's collection of Robert Blust's field materials include audio recordings and written materials for Titan
• Paradisec has a number of collections with Titan language materials.