| Huli | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Region | Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea |
| Ethnicity | Huli people |
Native speakers | 150,000 (2011)[1] |
Trans-New Guinea?
| |
| Latin script (Huli alphabet) Huli Braille | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | hui |
| Glottolog | huli1244 |
Huli is aTari language spoken by theHuli people of theHela Province ofPapua New Guinea. It has apentadecimal (base-15)numeral system:ngui means 15,ngui ki means 15×2 = 30, andngui ngui means 15×15 = 225.
Huli has apandanus language calledtayenda tu ha illili (bush divide taboo) used for collectingkaruka nuts (anga) as well as hunting or traveling.[2]Tayenda is used to evade malevolent bush spirits.[2] The grammar forTayenda is nearly identical to normal Huli, but the vocabulary is changed, often borrowing words fromDuna but with changed meanings.[2]
Huli has a syllable structure of (C)V.
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i ĩ | u ũ |
| Mid | e ẽ | o õ |
| Open | ɑ ɑ̃ | |
/ɑ/ is pronounced more fronted as [æ] before /r/ and /ʝ/.[3]
Vowel nasality isphonemic in the language.Vowels can also carry three phonemic tones; high-falling, mid-level, and low-rising.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||||
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | k | |||
| voiced | b | d | g | ||||
| prenasal | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᵑɡ | ||||
| Fricative | ʝ | h | |||||
| Approximant | w | ɭ | |||||
| Trill | r | ||||||
Stops /p t k/ can become aspirated as [pʰ tʰ kʰ].
Many speakers pronounce /t/ as [s] before /i/.
/d/ is realized as voiceless as [d̥] when occurring word-initially, and is palatalized as [dʲ] between /i/ and a word-final /ɑ/.
/r/ only occurs word-medially.
/b ɡ/ can be phonetically realized as fricatives intervocalically as [β ɣ].
Authority control databases: National |
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