Dusner is a language spoken in the village of

Dusner Dusner is a language spoken in the village of Dusner in the province of West Papua, Indonesia. Dusner is highly endangered, and has been reported to have just three remaining speakers. Sociolinguistic situation The language is highly endangere ...

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 inva ...

, 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 the ...

'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 The University of Papua ( id, Universitas Papua) is a university in the province of West Papua, Indonesia. It has three campuses: Manokwari, Sorong, and Raja Ampat.The university teaches Economics, Forestry, Agriculture and Earth Sciences Ear ...

) 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 The Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP)Selkirk, E. (1984). On the major class features and syllable theory. In Aronoff & Oehrle (eds.) Language Sound Structure: Studies in Phonology. Cambridge: MIT Press. 107-136.Clements, G. N. (1990). The role of ...

Morphology

References

External links

* South Halmahera–West New Guinea languages Languages of western New Guinea Cenderawasih Bay Papua (province) culture Endangered Austronesian languages {{Au-lang-stub