Dusner is a language spoken in the village of
Dusner in the province of
West Papua,
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
. Dusner is highly
endangered
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and in ...
, and has been reported to have just three remaining speakers.
Sociolinguistic situation
The language is highly endangered with only three speakers reported to be remaining.
In 2011, researchers from
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
's Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics began a project to document the vocabulary and grammar of the language, in collaboration with UNIPA (
State University of Papua) and UNCEN (
Cenderawasih University
Cenderawasih University ( id, Universitas Cenderawasih) is a university in Jayapura, Papua province, Indonesia. The university is the leading educational institution in the province.
The university has faculties in economics, law, teacher trai ...
, Papua).
The project outputs were a vocabulary, a published grammar,
and a website documenting the language.
Phonology
The phoneme inventory of Dusner consists of five vowels and 19 consonants (five of which are only attested in loanwords from Indonesian/Papuan Malay).
(Phonèmes in parenthèses in the table are only attested in loanwords from Papuan Malay)
There is no tone in the language. The phonology of the language has a high number of complex syllable onsets, some of them contravening the
Sonority Sequencing Principle.
Morphology
References
External links
*
South Halmahera–West New Guinea languages
Languages of western New Guinea
Cenderawasih Bay
Papua (province) culture
Endangered Austronesian languages
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