Motu language

Motu (sometimes called Pure Motu or True Motu to distinguish it from Hiri Motu) is a Central Papuan Tip language that is spoken by the Motuans, an indigenous ethnic group of Papua New Guinea. It is commonly used today in the region, particularly around the capital, Port Moresby.

Motu
Pure Motu, True Motu
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Central Province
Ethnicity	Motuan
Native speakers	39,000 (2008)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Western Oceanic Papuan Tip Central West Motu
Writing system	Latin script (Motu alphabet) Motu Braille
Language codes
ISO 639-3	meu
Glottolog	motu1246

A simplified form of Motu developed as a trade language in the Papuan region, in the southeast of the main island of New Guinea, originally known as Police Motu, and today known as Hiri Motu. After Tok Pisin and English, Hiri Motu was at the time of independence the third most commonly spoken of the more than 800 languages of Papua New Guinea, although its use has been declining for some years, mainly in favour of Tok Pisin.

Motu is classified as one of the Malayo-Polynesian languages and bears some linguistic similarities to Polynesian and Micronesian languages.

Phonology

Motu is a typical Austronesian language in that it is heavily vowel-based. Every Motu syllable ends in a vowel sound — this may be preceded by a single consonant (there are no "consonant clusters"). Vowel sounds may be either monophthongs (consisting of a single basic sound) or diphthongs (consisting of more than one basic sound).

There are only five vowel sounds /a, e, i, o, u/;^[2] Motu diphthongs are written and pronounced as combinations of two vowels. The sounds oi and oe, ai and ae, au and ao (approximately like English boy, high, cow), and r and l are distinguished in Motu but not in Hiri Motu.^[3] There is no letter f; when it occurs in loan words, it is usually represented as p.

		Labial	Alveolar	Velar		Glottal
				plain	labialized
Stop	voiceless	p	t	k	kʷ
	voiced	b	d	ɡ	ɡʷ
Fricative		v	s	ɣ		h
Nasal		m	n
Approximant			l
Flap			ɺ

• Taylor (1970) claims that the velar stops and fricative are advanced before front vowels or retracted before back vowels.^[4]

Motu Braille has the usual letter assignments apart from ḡ, which is ⠿.^{[unreliable source?][5]}