Boazi language

Boazi (Bwadji), also known as Kuni after one of its dialects, is a Papuan language spoken in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea by the Bwadji people in the vicinity of Lake Murray and is written using the Latin script, with ⟨æ⟩ for /ɛ/, ⟨ø⟩ for /ʌ/, and ⟨꞉⟩ for (relatively infrequent) vowel length. Some recordings of songs and stories have been made in this language.^[2]

Boazi
Kuni
Region	Papua New Guinea
Native speakers	4,500 (2007)[1]
Language family	Anim Marind-Boazi-Yaqai Kuni-Boazi Boazi
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kvg
Glottolog	kuni1265

Phonology

Consonants^[3][4]

		Labial	Alveolar	Velar	Uvular
Plosive	voiceless	p	t	k	q
	prenasal	ᵐb	ⁿd	ᵑɡ	ᶰq
	voiced	b	d	ɡ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	x
	voiced	v	z	ɣ
Nasal		m	n
Liquid			l ~ ɾ

• /l/ can fluctuate as sounds [l ~ d ~ ɾ]. Sounds [ɾ] and [d] are more common in word-medial positions.
• /q/ may also be heard as a retracted velar plosive [k̠] in free variation.
• /ᶰq/ can also be heard as a prenasal velar fricative [ᵑɣ] in free variation.
• Sounds /s, z/ tend to become alveolo-palatal [ɕ, ʑ] when in the environment of a high vowel.
• Sounds /v, z/ tend to be devoiced [v̥, z̥] in word-final positions.
• /f/ may be heard in free fluctuation with [θ] within the environment of a high vowel.

Vowels^[4]

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
High-mid	e		o
Low-mid	ɛ		ʌ
Low		a

Further reading

• Drabbe, Petrus. 1954. Talen en dialecten van zuid-west Nieuw-Guinea [Languages and Dialects of Southwest New Guinea]. Posieux/Fribourg: Instituut Anthropos.
• Edwards-Fumey, Deborah. 2006. The verb subject prefix in Kuni. MA thesis: Universität Bern.