| Ndu | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: |
Sepik River basin, Papua New Guinea |
| Genetic classification: |
Sepik Ndu |
| Subdivisions: |
8-12 languages
|
The Ndu languages are the best known family of the Sepik languages of northern Papua New Guinea. The Sepik is the longest river on the island of New Guinea. The majority of the river flows through the Papua New Guinea (PNG provinces of Sandaun Papua New Guinea (or ˈpæpjuːə in Tok Pisin: Papua Niugini) officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Sepik languages are a proposed family of some 50 Papuan languages spoken in the Sepik river basin of northern Papua New Guinea. List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Sepik languages are a proposed family of some 50 Papuan languages spoken in the Sepik river basin of northern Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea (or ˈpæpjuːə in Tok Pisin: Papua Niugini) officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania Ndu is the word for 'man' in the languages that make up this group. The languages were first identified as a related family by Donald Laycock. Dr Donald Laycock was an Australian linguist and anthropologist
Abelam is the most populous language, with about 45,000 speakers apiece, though Iatmül is better known to the outside world. There are eight to twelve Ndu languages, depending on how dialects are classified.
Most Sepik and neighboring languages have systems of three vowels, /ɨ ə a/, that are distinct only in height. In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract Phonetic [i u e o] are a result of palatal and labial assimilation of /ɨ ə/ to adjacent consonants. Assimilation is a common Phonological process by which the phonetics of a speech segment becomes more like that of another segment in a word (or at a word boundary The Ndu languages may take this reduction a step further: In these languages, /ɨ/ is used as an epenthetic vowel to break up consonant clusters in compound words. In Phonology, epenthesis (/əˈpɛnθəsɪs/ Ancient Greek ἐπένθεσις - epenthesis from epi "on" + en "in" In Linguistics, a consonant cluster (or consonant blend) is a group of Consonants which have no intervening Vowel. In Linguistics, a compound is a Lexeme (less precisely a Word) that consists of more than one stem. Within words, /ɨ/ only occurs between similar consonants, and seems to be explicable as epenthesis there as well, so that the only underlying vowels that need to be assumed are |ə a|. That is, the Ndu languages may be one of the rare cases of a two-vowel system, the others being found in the Arrernte and Northwest Caucasian languages. The Arrernte (also Aranda and Arrarnta) (pronounced UH-rrahn-da are those Indigenous Australians who are the original custodians of Arrernte lands The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called Pontic, Circassian, or Abkhaz-Adyghe, are a group of languages spoken in the Caucasus region
References
- William A. Foley (2005). "Linguistic prehistory in the Sepik - Ramu basin. " In: Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Robin Hide and Jack Golson, eds, Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. Pacific Linguistics 572. 109-144. Canberra: Australian National University.
- Donald C. Laycock (1965). The Ndu language family (Sepik District, New Guinea). Pacific Linguistics C-1. Canberra: Australian National University.
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