Language name: YAWA
UPSID number: 8629
Alternate name(s): YAVA
Classification: Papuan, Geelvink Bay
This language has 19 segments
Its Frequency index is 0.538335862 (average percentage of segments; 0.1: many very rare segments; 0.39: average; 0.7: many common segments)
The language has these sounds: p t k b d dZ s sJ m n nJ r[ j w i "e a "o u
Comment: Yawa is spoken on Yapen island, Irian Jaya, Indonesia. Stress placement is unpredictable. After /u/ the palato-alveolar affricate has the allophone [g]. Nasal + obstruent clusters occur but Jones (1986) reports that they are not homorganic if the obstruent is velar or palato-alveolar, and are phonetically heterosyllabic where intervocalic; hence, even initial cases are analyzed as sequences. Many two-vowel sequences occur.
Source(s): Jones, L.K. 1986. Yawa phonology. Papers in New Guinea linguistics, no. 25, 1-30. Pacific Linguistics, Series A, No. 74. Australian National University, Canberra.

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