Ekari language

Ekari (also Ekagi, Kapauku, Mee) is a Trans–New Guinea language spoken by about 100,000 people in the Paniai lakes region of the Indonesian province of Central Papua, including the villages of Enarotali, Mapia and Moanemani. This makes it the second-most populous Papuan language in Indonesian New Guinea after Western Dani. Language use is vigorous. Documentation is quite limited.

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Quick Facts Native to, Region ...

Ekari
Mee
Native to	Indonesia
Region	Papua
Ethnicity	Ekari
Native speakers	(100,000 cited 1985)^[1]
Language family	Trans–New Guinea West Trans–New Guinea Paniai Lakes Ekari
Language codes
ISO 639-3	`ekg`
Glottolog	`ekar1243`
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Phonology

Summarize

Perspective

Consonants

More information Bilabial, Alveolar ...

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	m	n
Plosive	plain	p	t		k
voiced	b	d		ɡᶫ
Approximant	w		j

The voiced velar stop /ɡᶫ/ is pronounced with lateral release. Doble describes both /k/ and /ɡᶫ/ as being labialized [kʷ, ɡᶫʷ] after the back vowels /o, u/ (i.e., okei 'they', euga 'more'), with /g/ having 'varying' degrees of the lateral.^[2] Staroverov & Tebay describe /ɡᶫ/ as being velar lateral [ɡᶫ] before front vowels and uvular non-lateral [ɢʶ] before non-front vowels. When lateral, there is usually a stop onset, but occasionally just [ʟ] is heard.^[3]

/j/ is a "more palatalized [ʒ]" (perhaps [ʝ] or [ʑ]) before the high front vowel /i/ (e.g., yina 'insect').^[2]

Vowels

Both Doble (1987) and Staroverov & Tebay (2019) describe five vowel qualities. Long vowels and diphthongs are analyzed as sequences.

More information front, central ...

	front	central	back
high	i		u
mid	ɛ		o
low		a

Tone

Ekari has pitch accent. One syllable in a word may have a high tone, contrasting with words without a high tone. If the vowel is long or a diphthong and not at the end of the word, the high tone is phonetically rising.

CV words have no tone contrast. CVV words may be mid/low or high. (In all of these patterns, here and following, initial C is optional.)

Words of the following shapes may have a contrastive high tone on the final syllable: CVCV, CVCVV. Words of the following shapes may have either a rising or a falling tone on the first long syllable: CVVCV, CVVCVV, CVCVVCVV, CVVCVCV (rare), CVVCVCVV (rare). The following word shapes do not have contrastive tone: CVCVCV, CVCVVCV, CVCVCVV, and words of 4 or more syllables.

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Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Tone

References

Bibliography

External links

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