Alekano, or Gahuku (Gahuku-Gama), is a
Papuan language
The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian and non-Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geogra ...
spoken in
Gahuku Rural LLG of
Eastern Highlands Province
Eastern Highlands is a highlands province of Papua New Guinea. The provincial capital is Goroka. The province covers an area of 11,157 km², and has a population of 579,825 (2011 census). The province shares a common administrative boundary w ...
,
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 ...
. There are about 25,000 speakers.
Alekano is also known as Gahuku, after the name of the largest clan of speakers, or Gama, after the second largest clan. Calling the language by these names has been rejected by speakers who are not members of these clans, and Alekano has been largely adopted as the official name. The latter name means "bring it". In two closely related languages spoken directly to the northwest,
Tokano and
Dano, it has the same meaning.
[Deibler, Ellis W., compiler. Available: 2008; Created: 2008. Dictionaries of Alekano - English and English - Alekano. anuscriptiii, 311 p]
Phonology
Alekano has 5 vowels, all
roundedness, unrounded, which is exceptional. It has 12 consonants, but is found only in the village Wanima, in derivations or in
pidgin loanwords.
[1992. Alekano Organised Phonology Data. anuscript]
Vowels
Glottal coda
In Alekano, a syllable may be closed only with a
glottal stop, as in "enough". That is currently not treated as a consonant, but it is unclear if words written as vowel initial begin with a glottal stop. It is written as an acute accent in the orthography, for example, ''ánesí''.
Consonants
The lateral is initially and between vowels.
Syllables
The most complex syllables are of the form : VV may be a diphthong of , , or followed by or , or of . Other vowels may also occur in sequence (
hiatus
Hiatus may refer to:
*Hiatus (anatomy), a natural fissure in a structure
* Hiatus (stratigraphy), a discontinuity in the age of strata in stratigraphy
*''Hiatus'', a genus of picture-winged flies with sole member species '' Hiatus fulvipes''
* Gl ...
).
Tone
Alekano has low and high tones but with a very low
functional load
In linguistics and especially phonology, functional load, or phonemic load, refers to the importance of certain features in making distinctions in a language. In other words, features with a high functional load distinguish more words from others i ...
. HL receives strong stress, LH lesser stress.
Grammar
Alekano is a
subject–object–verb (SOV) language.
Orthography
Alekano uses the
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...
.
References
External links
Alekano dictionary
*A
open access archive of Alekano audio and videoare available through the
Kaipuleohone Kaipuleohone is a digital ethnographic archive that houses audio and visual files, photographs, as well as hundreds of textual material such as notes, dictionaries, and transcriptions relating to small and endangered languages. The archive is stored ...
.
{{authority control
Kainantu–Goroka languages
Languages of Eastern Highlands Province
Subject–object–verb languages
Tonal languages