| Lihir | |
|---|---|
| Lir | |
| Region | Lihir Island, offNew Ireland |
Native speakers | (13,000 cited 2000 census)[1] |
Austronesian
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | lih |
| Glottolog | lihi1237 |
TheLihir language (Lir) is anAustronesian language spoken in theLihir island group, inNew Ireland Province,Papua New Guinea. It is notable for having five levels ofgrammatical number: singular, dual, trial, paucal and plural.[2] It is questionable whether the trial is indeed trial or whether it is paucal, leaving there being a paucal and a greater paucal.[2] Either way, this is the highest number of levels of grammatical number in any language.[2] This distinction appears in both independent pronouns and possessor suffixes.[2] There is some variation inpronunciation andorthography between the main islandNiolam, and some of the smaller islands in the group.
The nameLihir is anexonym from the relatedPatpatar language. Natively, it is calledLir, a cognate of the Patpatar name.
Sources are indeterminate with regards to the phonemic status of different surface vowels, although minimal pairs provide evidence for the phonemic status of most vowel qualities.[3]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Open | a |
| Labial | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasals | m | n | ŋ | ||
| Stops | plain | p | t | k | ʔ |
| prenasalized | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᵑɡ | ||
| Affricates | t͡s | ||||
| Fricatives | sz | x | h | ||
| Liquids | lɾ | ||||
| Semivowels | w | j | |||
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