Central Asmat language

Central Asmat is a Papuan language of West New Guinea, spoken by the Asmat people.

Central Asmat
Native to	Indonesia
Region	Asmat Regency, South Papua
Ethnicity	Asmat people
Native speakers	(7,000 cited 1972)[1] 2,000 Yaosakor (1991), perhaps counted above
Language family	Trans–New Guinea Asmat–Kamoro Asmat Central Asmat
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cns – inclusive code Individual code: asy – Yaosakor Asmat
Glottolog	cent2247

Dialects

Central Asmat has a number of dialects, which are:^[2]

• Keenok
• Sokoni
• Keenakap
• Kawenak (subdialects: Simai, Kainak, Mismam, Mecemup)

Yaosakor Asmat, assigned its own ISO code, is a variety of Central Asmat, not a distinct language.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	m	n
Plosive	p	t	tʃ	k
Fricative	f	s	ʝ
Rhotic		r
Approximant	w

• /p/ can be heard as a fricative [ɸ] when in intervocalic positions, as [pʷ] in the speech of older speakers when preceding /e/.
• /tʃ/ can be heard as a palatalized [tʲ] when in word-final positions following /i/.
• /k/ can be heard as a fricative [x] when following a vowel and preceding a consonant.
• /s/ can be heard as fricatives [θ] or [ʃ] among some older speakers.
• /r/ can be heard as a flap [ɾ] in word-medial and word-final positions.
• /ʝ/ can be heard as [dʒ] or [j] in word-initial positions.
• Nasals /m, n/ may fluctuate to voiced stops [b, d] in word-initial positions, and as prenasal stops [ᵐb, ⁿd] when in syllable-initial positions.^[3]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e	ə	o
Low		a

Phoneme	Allophones
/i/	[i], [y], [ɪ]
/e/	[e], [ɛ], [ø]
/a/	[ä], [a], [æ]
/o/	[o], [ɤ], [ɔ]
/u/	[u], [ʉ]