Burum (also known as Yaknge or Somba-Siawari after its two dialects and Mindik in the language itself) is a

Papuan language The Papuan languages are the non-Austronesian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands in Indonesia, Solomon Islands, and East Timor. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply a ...

spoken in

Morobe Province Morobe is a province on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. The provincial capital and largest city is Lae. The province covers 33,705 km2, with a population of 674,810 (2011 census), and since the division of Southern Highlands Province ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

. Its closest related language is Borong (also known as ''Kosorong'').

Phonology

Consonants

* are aspirated word initially and unreleased word finally. Between vowels, they are . * and are rarely , in some dialects. * is word initially.

Vowels

Burum also has 14 diphthongs: , , , , , , , , , , , , , and .

Orthography

* occurs in loanwords. * Weakened are written , as pronounced.

Notes

References