Misima-Panaeati, also called Misiman, is an indigenous Austronesian language spoken on the islands of

Misima Misima (formerly called St. Aignan) is a volcanic island in the northwest of Louisiade Archipelago within Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. History Misima Island was inhabited by Austronesians since about 1500 BC. The island was sig ...

, Panaeati, and the islands of the eastern half of the

Calvados Chain The Calvados Chain are a group of islands in the Solomon Sea, belonging to Papua New Guinea within the Louisiade Archipelago. Geography The group extends from Pana Varavara in the west to the small island of Nigaho in the east over a distance o ...

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 i ...

Phonology

Vowels

Misima-Paneati has 5

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...

phonemes.

Consonants

Misima-Paneati has 17

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...

phonemes.

Syllables

In Misima-Paneati, the following syllable types commonly occur: V, CV, CVC, and VC. The open syllables V and CV are found in all positions of words, whereas the closed syllables CVC and VC are only found word finally and across morpheme boundaries, with the exception of the following 5 words: * – ‘feelings’ * – ‘centre pole’ * – ‘fingernail’ * – ‘centre rib of coconut leaf’ * – ‘sneeze’ The only monomorphemic

consonant cluster In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...

s that always occur across syllable boundaries are: * * * * *

Notes

External links

* Materials on Misima are included in the open access

Arthur Capell Arthur Capell (28 March 1902 – 10 August 1986) was an Australian linguist, who made major contributions to the study of Australian languages, Austronesian languages and Papuan languages. Early life Capell was born in Newtown, New South Wales ...

collections
AC1
an
AC2
and the Malcolm Ross collection
MR1
held by

Paradisec The Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC) is a cross-institutional project that supports work on endangered languages and cultures of the Pacific and the region around Australia. They digitise reel-to ...

References

* * {{Languages of Papua New Guinea Subject–object–verb languages Papuan Tip languages Languages of Milne Bay Province