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| Motu | |
|---|---|
| Pure Motu, True Motu | |
| Native to | Papua New Guinea |
| Region | Central Province |
| Ethnicity | Motuan |
Native speakers | 39,000 (2008)[1] |
| Latin script (Motu alphabet) Motu Braille | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | meu |
| Glottolog | motu1246 |
Motu (sometimes calledPure Motu orTrue Motu to distinguish it fromHiri Motu) is aCentral Papuan Tip language that is spoken by theMotuans, an indigenousethnic group ofPapua New Guinea. It is commonly used today in the region, particularly around the capital,Port Moresby.
A simplified form of Motu developed as a trade language in the Papuan region, in the southeast of the main island ofNew Guinea, originally known as Police Motu, and today known asHiri Motu. AfterTok Pisin andEnglish, Hiri Motu was at the time of independence the third most commonly spoken of the more than 800languages of Papua New Guinea, although its use has been declining for some years, mainly in favour of Tok Pisin.
Motu is classified as one of theMalayo-Polynesian languages and bears some linguistic similarities toPolynesian andMicronesian languages.
Motu is a typical Austronesian language in that it is heavily vowel-based. Every Motu syllable ends in a vowel sound — this may be preceded by a single consonant (there are no "consonant clusters"). Vowel sounds may be eithermonophthongs (consisting of a single basic sound) ordiphthongs (consisting of more than one basic sound).
There are only five vowel sounds/a,e,i,o,u/;[2] Motu diphthongs are written and pronounced as combinations of two vowels. The soundsoi andoe,ai andae,au andao (approximately like Englishboy,high,cow), andr andl are distinguished in Motu but not in Hiri Motu.[3] There is no letterf; when it occurs in loan words, it is usually represented asp.
| Labial | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | labialized | |||||
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | k | kʷ | |
| voiced | b | d | ɡ | ɡʷ | ||
| Fricative | v | s | ɣ | h | ||
| Nasal | m | n | ||||
| Approximant | l | |||||
| Flap | ɺ | |||||
MotuBraille has theusual letter assignments apart from ḡ, which is⠿.[unreliable source?][5]
