| Ipili | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Papua New Guinea |
| Region | Enga Province |
Native speakers | 26,000 (2002)[1] |
Engan
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ipi |
| Glottolog | ipil1240 |
Ipili is anEngan language of the East New Guinea Highlands inEnga Province,Papua New Guinea. The name of the language means 'salt-people' inHuli language.[2] There are 26,000 Ipili speakers.[2]
There are two dialects, Porgera-Paiela and Tipinini. The latter is similar toEnga.Missionary Terrance Borchard guided translation of the New Testament in the Paiela dialect. Working with the Ipili tribe they developed an alphabet and written language, previously spoken. He began the work in 1969 until his death in Aug. 2014.Literacy work resulted.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Low | a |
| Type | Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p, mb | t, nd | nj | k, ng |
| Nasal | m | n | ||
| Fricative | s | |||
| Liquid | w | l | y |
Ipili has five vowels (/a, e, i, o, u/) and thirteen consonants (/p, t, k, mb, nd, nj, ŋg, m, n, s, l, y, w/).[4] It is reported that Ipili may have tonal contrasts.[3][4]
In Ipiliconsonant clusters do not occur.[5]
Progressive assimilation andregressive assimilation can be found in Ipili.[5]
Ipili hasvowel height harmony, where high and mid vowels are rarely adjacent to each other. By contrast, the low vowel 'a' can be adjacent to any vowel, and thus the wordmugalo 'a variety of bamboo', which contains either high and mid vowel, is found.[3]
Ipili verbs are inflected fortense, mood, aspect,person andnumber bysuffixation.[6] These suffixes are classified into two groups, tense suffixes and person suffixes. A person suffix is preceded by a tense suffix.[5]
There are three grammatical numbers: singular,dual and plural. Verbs are also inflected by three persons, but second and third person are not distinguished in the dual and plural.[5]
There are a number of tenses and aspects, like apresent tense, threepast tenses[7] and twofuture tenses.[5]
The basic word order issubject-object-verb.[2] Ipiliclauses thus place thefinite verb in the final position.[6]
Ipili people have traditional sung tales calledtindi. The content may contain something magical.[2]
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