Iatmul language
| Iatmül | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Papua New Guinea |
| Region | Sepik River basin |
| Ethnicity | Iatmul people |
Native speakers | 8,400 (2003)[1] |
Sepik
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ian |
| Glottolog | iatm1242 |
| ELP | Iatmul |
Iatmül is perhaps the best known of the Ndu languages[2] of Sepik River region of northern Papua New Guinea.
Most Iatmul speakers, however, do not refer to their language or even themselves by the term Iatmul. Instead, they call their language Gepma Kwudi (pronounced Ngepma Kwundi). Gepma is the Iatmul word for "village"; kwudi means "speech".
Recently, Gerd Jendraschek wrote an extensive grammar of the Iatmul language as a postdoctoral thesis.[3]
For the sociocultural features of the people who speak the Iatmül language, see Iatmul people.
Sound system
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | Voiceless | p | t | k | |
| Prenasalized | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᵑɡ | ||
| Fricative | v | s | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ||
| Liquid | w | l | j | ||
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | [i] | [ɨ] | [u] |
| Mid | [e] | [ə] | [o] |
| Low | [a] |
References
- ^ Iatmül at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Folely, William (1986) The Papuan Languages of New Guinea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-28621-2.
- ^ Jendraschek, Gerd (2012) A Grammar of Iatmul. University of Regensburg. Published online at Academia.edu