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Name & language family: Western Kewa (Trans-New Guinea)
Region:
N° of speakers: 100,000 (2001)
W. Kewa's consonants are remarkably unbalanced; only 2 voiceless ones /t/ and /q/, while the voiced ones are /ᵐb/ and /ⁿd/. This means there's only 1 full pair
Region:
N° of speakers: 100,000 (2001)
W. Kewa's consonants are remarkably unbalanced; only 2 voiceless ones /t/ and /q/, while the voiced ones are /ᵐb/ and /ⁿd/. This means there's only 1 full pair
The other 2 - the prenasalised voiced stop & the plain voiceless uvular stop - have no corresponding phoneme. Also note-worthy, the absence of /k/. While <k> does exist in W. Kewa's alphabet, it is articulated as /x/ or /k͡x/ word-initially
Furthermore, Franklin (1971) describes <g> as "voiceless and backed", hence the interpretation as a uvular stop /q/. The lack of balance between voiceless/plain and voiced/prenasalised is intriguing
Western Kewa has 3 fricatives; /ɸ/, /s/ and /x/. All of them are voiceless and voicing is not said to be contrastive. As said before, /x/ has the affricate realisation /k͡x/ word-initially
The LAPSyD used the character /ɺ/ to transcribe what was described by Franklin as being /l/, so I can't really explain this specific character is here ?
W. Kewa has 2 nasals while its Eastern counterpart has the additional /ɲ/
W. Kewa has 2 nasals while its Eastern counterpart has the additional /ɲ/
As for the vowels, things are much smoother! There are 5 qualities. Length is not contrastive but can heard in specific environments; such as when these vowels are words on their own. Only /a/ is not found by itself
And to finish, Western Kewa is a tonal language. It has 2 tones; High and Low
Sources:
Kewa I: phonological asymmetry, by Karl and Joice Franklin (1962)
https://cutt.ly/mhQ0uyO
A Grammar of Kewa, New Guinea, by Karl Franklin (1971)
http://sealang.net/archives/pl/pdf/PL-C16.pdf
Kewa I: phonological asymmetry, by Karl and Joice Franklin (1962)https://cutt.ly/mhQ0uyO
A Grammar of Kewa, New Guinea, by Karl Franklin (1971)http://sealang.net/archives/pl/pdf/PL-C16.pdf
