Dobu language

Dobu or Dobuan is an Austronesian language spoken in Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. It is a lingua franca for 100,000 people in D'Entrecasteaux Islands.

Dobu
Dobuan
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Milne Bay Province, tip of Cape Vogel
Native speakers	(10,000 cited 1998)[1] 60% monolingual[1] L2 speakers: 51,000 (2021)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Western Oceanic Papuan Tip Nuclear Papuan Tip North Papuan Mainland – D'Entrecasteaux Dobu–Duau Dobu
Writing system	Latin script (Dobuan alphabet) Dobuan Braille
Language codes
ISO 639-3	dob
Glottolog	dobu1241

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial		Alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
		plain	lab.			plain	lab.	plain	lab.
Plosive	voiceless	p	pʷ	t		k	kʷ	ʔ	ʔʷ
	voiced	b	bʷ	d		ɡ	ɡʷ
Fricative				s
Nasal		m	mʷ	n
Flap				ɺ
Approximant					j	w

• Sounds /p, t, k/ may also be aspirated in free variation as [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ] in all environments.
• The lateral flap /ɺ/ may fluctuate with an alveolar vibrant flap [ɾ] depending on the dialect of the speaker.
• /j/ may also fluctuate with a fricative [ʝ] within vocabulary.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open		a

• /a/ may be heard as [ʌ] in unstressed syllables.
• /ɔ/ may be heard as slightly more centralized [ɔ̽] when following labialized consonants in unstressed positions.
• /u/ may be heard as [ʊ] in unstressed syllables.^[2]

External links

• An open access collection of singing in Dobu is available through Paradisec.
• Historical open access collections of recordings in Dobu are available through Paradisec, including the Malcome Ross collection (MR1) and two Arthur Campbell collections (AC1 and AC2)