Dialects
Dialectical differentiation is great enough that ''Ethnologue'' assigns separate codes to three varieties: *Lower *Mid or Central, also known as Tulem *Upper Lower Grand Valley Dani contains subdialects Lower Grand Valley Hitigima (Dani-Kurima, Kurima), Upper Bele, Lower Bele, Lower Kimbin (Kibin), and Upper Pyramid. Hupla, traditionally considered a separate language, is closer to Lower Grand Valley than the varieties of Grand Valley Dani are to each other.Phonology
Grand Valley Dani has established its own orthography during a conference between linguists of theConsonants
Unlike other orthographies of local languages in Indonesia (largely based on the standard orthography), the original Grand Valley Dani orthography (the current one might be not known) has ''j'' instead of ''y'', in common with the Indonesian old spelling. * The letters ⟨p, t, k⟩ are pronounced as aspirated /, , / in word-initial position and as , in intervocalic positions, respectively. They merge with voiceless /, , / syllable-finally, which is also represented by graphic voiced consonants ⟨b, d, g⟩. However, aspirated consonants still occur intervocalically, see below. * The phoneme merges with preceding or following phonemes: ** It aspirates preceding ⟨p, t, k⟩, creating effectively phonemic aspirated consonants in intervocalic positions (''japha'' "they fought"). ** It also compensatorily lengthened adjacent vowel or sonorants (except , ), however, one element of the most adjacent lengthened vowel to is devoiced (''wamhe'' "pig (with connective morpheme)").Vowels
Grammar
Verbs
Verbs in Grand Valley Dani are highly inflected for many tenses.Finite tenses
Although there are claimed "default" personal markers, the correspondences between tense suffixes and personal markers are often highly irregular. Nevertheless, inflections of verbs are still highly regular. Unless denoted in the table, verb forms are marked by personal markers.Semantics
The Dani language differentiates only two basic colours, ''mili'' for cool/dark shades such as blue, green, and black, and ''mola'' for warm/light colours such as red, yellow, and white. This trait makes it an interesting field of research for language psychologists, such asReferences
Further reading
* * {{West Trans–New Guinea languages Dani languages Languages of western New Guinea