Nakanai Language
Nakanai is spoken by the Nakanai tribe in West New Britain, a province of Papua New Guinea. It is an Austronesian language, belonging to the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup. Otherwise known as Nakonai, it also has dialects in the form of Losa, Bileki, Vere, Ubae, and Maututu. The name Nakanai is natively pronounced Lakalai, as the alveolar nasal has disappeared from the phonemic inventory of the language and has been replaced by The name given to the Nakanai people by the indigenous people, before the Tolai name of Nakanai was adopted, was either Muku or Muu. Those were derogatory words, and in Nakanai mean "to screw up the nose in distaste," and "humming sound made by masked men," respectively. History Due to links between Nakanai and Eastern Oceanic languages, it is believed that its language family speakers arrived from the east of Papua New Guinea. New Britain had experienced regular contact and settlement from 1840 to 1883, but the lack of coverage and useful records of th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia (a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean north of Australia). Its capital, located along its southeastern coast, is Port Moresby. The country is the world's third largest island country, with an area of . At the national level, after being ruled by three external powers since 1884, including nearly 60 years of Australian administration starting during World War I, Papua New Guinea established its sovereignty in 1975. It became an independent Commonwealth realm in 1975 with Elizabeth II as its queen. It also became a member of the Commonwealth of Nations in its own right. There are 839 known languages of Papua New Guinea, one of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Labial Consonant
Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. The two common labial articulations are bilabials, articulated using both lips, and labiodentals, articulated with the lower lip against the upper teeth, both of which are present in English. A third labial articulation is dentolabials, articulated with the upper lip against the lower teeth (the reverse of labiodental), normally only found in pathological speech. Generally precluded are linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue contacts the posterior side of the upper lip, making them coronals, though sometimes, they behave as labial consonants. The most common distribution between bilabials and labiodentals is the English one, in which the nasal and the stops, , , and , are bilabial and the fricatives, , and , are labiodental. The voiceless bilabial fricative, voiced bilabial fricative, and the bilabial approximant do not exist as the primary realizations of any sounds in English, bu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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High Vowel
A close vowel, also known as a high vowel (in U.S. terminology), is any in a class of vowel sounds used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth as it can be without creating a constriction. A constriction would produce a sound that would be classified as a consonant. The term "close" is recommended by the International Phonetic Association. Close vowels are often referred to as "high" vowels, as in the Americanist phonetic tradition, because the tongue is positioned high in the mouth during articulation. In the context of the phonology of any particular language, a ''high vowel'' can be any vowel that is more close than a mid vowel. That is, close-mid vowels, near-close vowels, and close vowels can all be considered high vowels. Partial list The six close vowels that have dedicated symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet are: * close front unrounded vowel * cl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Back Vowel
A back vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the highest point of the tongue is positioned relatively back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark vowels because they are perceived as sounding darker than the front vowels. Near-back vowels are essentially a type of back vowels; no language is known to contrast back and near-back vowels based on backness alone. The category "back vowel" comprises both raised vowels and retracted vowels. Articulation In their articulation, back vowels do not form a single category, but may be either raised vowels such as or retracted vowels such as .Scott Moisik, Ewa Czaykowska-Higgins, & John H. Esling (2012"The Epilaryngeal Articulator: A New Conceptual Tool for Understanding Lingual-Laryngeal Contrasts"/ref> Partial list The back vowels that have dedicated symbols in the Intern ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Central Vowel
A central vowel, formerly also known as a mixed vowel, is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel. (In practice, unrounded central vowels tend to be further forward and rounded central vowels further back.) List The central vowels that have dedicated symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet are: * close central unrounded vowel * close central protruded vowel * close-mid central unrounded vowel (older publications may use ) * close-mid central rounded vowel (older publications may use ) * mid central vowel with ambiguous rounding * open-mid central unrounded vowel (older publications may use ) * open-mid central rounded vowel (older publications may use ) * near-open central vowel with ambiguous rounding (typically used for an unrounded vowel; if precision is desired, may be used for an unrounded vowel and for ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Front Vowel
A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would otherwise make it a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also called bright vowels because they are perceived as sounding brighter than the back vowels. Near-front vowels are essentially a type of front vowel; no language is known to contrast front and near-front vowels based on backness alone. Rounded front vowels are typically centralized, that is, near-front in their articulation. This is one reason they are written to the right of unrounded front vowels in the IPA vowel chart. Partial list The front vowels that have dedicated symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet are: * close front unrounded vowel * close front compressed vowel * near-close front unrounded vowel * near-close front compressed vowel * close-mid front unroun ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Glide Consonant
In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the consonants ''y'' and ''w'', in ''yes'' and ''west'', respectively. Written in IPA, ''y'' and ''w'' are near to the vowels ''ee'' and ''oo'' in ''seen'' and ''moon,'' written in IPA. The term ''glide'' may alternatively refer to any type of transitional sound, not necessarily a semivowel. Classification Semivowels form a subclass of approximants. Although "semivowel" and "approximant" are sometimes treated as synonymous, most authors use the term "semivowel" for a more restricted set; there is no universally agreed-upon definition, and the exact details may vary from author to author. For example, do not consider the labiodental approximant to be a semivowel, while proposes that it should be considered one. In the International Phoneti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fricative Consonant
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in the case of German (the final consonant of ''Bach''); or the side of the tongue against the molars, in the case of Welsh (appearing twice in the name ''Llanelli''). This turbulent airflow is called frication. A particular subset of fricatives are the sibilants. When forming a sibilant, one still is forcing air through a narrow channel, but in addition, the tongue is curled lengthwise to direct the air over the edge of the teeth. English , , , and are examples of sibilants. The usage of two other terms is less standardized: "Spirant" is an older term for fricatives used by some American and European phoneticians and phonologists. "Strident" could mean just "sibilant", but some authors include also labiodental and uvular fricatives in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lateral Consonant
A lateral is a consonant in which the airstream proceeds along one or both of the sides of the tongue, but it is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. An example of a lateral consonant is the English ''L'', as in ''Larry''. Lateral consonants contrast with central consonants, in which the airstream flows through the center of the mouth. For the most common laterals, the tip of the tongue makes contact with the upper teeth (see dental consonant) or the upper gum (see alveolar consonant), but there are many other possible places for laterals to be made. The most common laterals are approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a ...s and belong to the class of liquid consonant, liquids, but lateral fricative consonant, fricatives and affricate co ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rhotic Consonant
In phonetics, rhotic consonants, or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthography, orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek alphabet, Greek letter Rho (letter), rho, including R, , in the Latin script and Er (Cyrillic), , in the Cyrillic script. They are transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by upper- or lower-case variants of Roman , : , , , , , , , and as well as by the lower-case turned Roman (the symbol for the near-open central vowel) combined with the "non-syllabic" diacritic, that is . This class of sounds is difficult to characterise phonetically; from a phonetic standpoint, there is no single articulatory correlate (manner of articulation, manner or place of articulation, place) common to rhotic consonants. Rhotics have instead been found to carry out similar phonological functions or to have certain similar phonological features across different languages. Being "R-like" is an elusive and ambiguous con ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nasal Consonant
In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majority of consonants are oral consonants. Examples of nasals in English are , and , in words such as ''nose'', ''bring'' and ''mouth''. Nasal occlusives are nearly universal in human languages. There are also other kinds of nasal consonants in some languages. Definition Nearly all nasal consonants are nasal occlusives, in which air escapes through the nose but not through the mouth, as it is blocked (occluded) by the lips or tongue. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound. Rarely, non-occlusive consonants may be nasalized. Most nasals are voiced, and in fact, the nasal sounds and are among the most common sounds cross-linguistically. Voiceless nasals occur in a few languages such as Burmese, Welsh, Icelandic and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stop Consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips (, ), or glottis (). Plosives contrast with nasals, where the vocal tract is blocked but airflow continues through the nose, as in and , and with fricatives, where partial occlusion impedes but does not block airflow in the vocal tract. Terminology The terms ''stop, occlusive,'' and ''plosive'' are often used interchangeably. Linguists who distinguish them may not agree on the distinction being made. The terms refer to different features of the consonant. "Stop" refers to the airflow that is stopped. "Occlusive" refers to the articulation, which occludes (blocks) the vocal tract. "Plosive" refers to the release burst (plosion) of the consonant. Some object to the use of "plosive" for inaudibly released stops, which may then instead be ca ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |