Dusner language

Dusner is a language spoken in the village of Dusner in the province of West Papua, Indonesia. Dusner is highly endangered, and has been reported to have just three remaining speakers.^[2][1][3]

Dusner
Native to	West Papua, Indonesia
Region	Cenderawasih Bay
Native speakers	3 (2011)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian Eastern Malayo-Polynesian South Halmahera–West New Guinea Cenderawasih Bay Biakic Dusner
Language codes
ISO 639-3	dsn
Glottolog	dusn1237
ELP	Dusner
Dusner Show map of Western New Guinea Dusner Show map of Indonesia Dusner Show map of Southeast Asia
Coordinates: 2.74°S 134.39°E / -2.74; 134.39

Sociolinguistic situation

The language is highly endangered with only three speakers reported to be remaining.^[2][1][3] In 2011, researchers from Oxford University's Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics began a project to document the vocabulary and grammar of the language, in collaboration with UNIPA (State University of Papua) and UNCEN (Cenderawasih University, Papua).^[4][5] The project outputs were a vocabulary, a published grammar,^[2] and a website documenting the language.

Phonology

The phoneme inventory of Dusner consists of five vowels and 19 consonants (five of which are only attested in loanwords from Indonesian/Papuan Malay).^[2]

Vowels^[2]

	front	back
high	i	u
mid	e	o
low		a

Consonants^[2]

		labial	alveolar	palatal	velar	glottal
nasal		m	n	(ɲ)	ŋ
plosive/ affricate	voiceless	p	t	(t͡ʃ)	k
	voiced	b	d	(d͡ʒ)	g
fricative		β	s			(h)
liquid			r (l)
glide		w		j

(Phonemes in parentheses in the table are only attested in loanwords from Papuan Malay)

There is no tone in the language. The phonology of the language has a high number of complex syllable onsets, some of them contravening the Sonority Sequencing Principle.

Morphology