Khehek language
| Khehek | |
|---|---|
| Levei-Ndrehet | |
| Native to | Papua New Guinea |
| Region | West-central Manus Island, Manus Province |
Native speakers | (1,600 cited 1991)[1] |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | tlx |
| Glottolog | kheh1237 |
Khehek is an Oceanic language spoken by approximately 1600 people on west-central Manus Island, Manus Province of Papua New Guinea. It has two dialects, Drehet and Levei, which are sometimes considered separate languages.
Phonology
The following description is of Drehet dialect.
Consonants
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Labialized | |||||
| Stop | Unaspirated | p | pʷ | t | c | k |
| Aspirated | kʰ | |||||
| Fricative | s | h | ||||
| Nasal | m | mʷ | n | ŋ | ||
| Prenasalized trill | nᵈr | |||||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Trill | r | |||||
| Semivowel | w | j | ||||
References
- ^ Khehek at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Further reading
- Blust, Robert (2005). "Must sound change be linguistically motivated?". Diachronica. 22 (2): 219–269. doi:10.1075/dia.22.2.02blu.
External links
- Kaipuleohone's Robert Blust collections include written and audio materials on the Levei dialect as well as written and audio materials on the Drehet dialect