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Usarufa language

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Language of Papua New Guinea

Usarufa
Region	Okapa District,Eastern Highlands Province,Papua New Guinea
Native speakers	(1,300 cited 1996)^[1]
Language family	Trans–New Guinea Kainantu–Goroka Kainantu Gauwa Usarufa
Language codes
ISO 639-3	`usa`
Glottolog	`usar1243`
Imikori Village, from Moife Hill

Usarufa is aKainantu language spoken by the people of the same name inPapua New Guinea. It belongs to the Gauwa branch of the Kainantu family of theKainantu–Goroka languages. The language area consists of six villages: Moife, Imikori, Irafo, Kagu, Agura 1, and Agura 2. ItsISO 639 code isusa.

As of 2009, the language was reported to have had about 1200 speakers and no fluent speakers below the age of 25, which makes it anendangered language.

Phonology

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This section is derived from the analyses presented in Bee 1965 in which an inventory of eighteen consonants is favoured.^[2]

Usarufa consonant phonemes
		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	plain	p	t		k	ʔ
Plosive	glottalised	ˀp	ˀt		ˀk	ʔ
Nasal	plain	m	n
	glottalised	ˀm	ˀn
	geminate	mː	nː
Approximant	plain	w	ɾ	j
Approximant	glottalised	ˀw		ˀj

The distribution of these consonants is determined by their position within a stress group, a segment which has one primarystress, the placement of which is determined by apitch contour. This stress group may consist of two or moresyllables. Only/ptkmnwj/ can occur as the onset of a stress group, and only/ʔ/ can occur finally. In stress-medial position all consonant phonemes can occur, and/pk/ are realised as[β] and[ɣ], respectively./ɾ/ may be realised as[ɺ].

An alternative analysis treats all glottalised and geminate consonants as secondary, in which case there are only nine consonant phonemes:

Usarufa consonant phonemes, alternative analysis
	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p	t		k	ʔ
Nasal	m	n
Approximant	w	r	j

Usarufa has an unremarkable five-vowel system.

Usarufa vowel phonemes
	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

/i/,/e/, and/a/ have the allophones[ɪ],[ɛ] and[ʌ], respectively./e/ may be realised as[ɪ] following coronal or palatal phonemes.

References

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^Usarufa atEthnologue (18th ed., 2015)(subscription required)
^Bee, Darlene (1965)."Usarufa Distinctive Features and Phonemes"(PDF). In Bee, Darlene (ed.).Papers in New Guinea Linguistics 4. Pacific Linguistics Series A. Vol. 6. Australian National University. pp. 39–68.doi:10.15144/PL-A6.39.