Oksapmin language

For the local-level government in Papua New Guinea, see Oksapmin Rural LLG.

Oksapmin is a Trans–New Guinea language spoken in Oksapmin Rural LLG, Telefomin District, Sandaun, Papua New Guinea. The two principal dialects are distinct enough to cause some problems with mutual intelligibility.

Oksapmin
Oksap
nuxule meŋ 'our language'
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Oksapmin Rural LLG, Telefomin District, Sandaun
Native speakers	12,000 (2005)[1]
Language family	Trans–New Guinea Oksapmin
Dialects	Upper Oksapmin Lower Oksapmin
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	opm
Glottolog	oksa1245
ELP	Oksapmin
Map: The Oksapmin language of New Guinea   The Oksapmin language   Other Trans–New Guinea languages   Other Papuan languages   Austronesian languages   Uninhabited
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Oksapmin has dyadic kinship terms^[2] and a body-part counting system that goes up to 27.^[3] Notable ethnographic research by Geoffrey B. Saxe at UC Berkeley has documented the encounter between pre-contact uses of number and its cultural evolution under conditions of monetization and exposure to schooling and the formal economy among the Oksapmin.^[4]

Classification

Oksapmin has been influenced by the Mountain Ok languages (the name "Oksapmin" is from Telefol), and the similarities with those languages were attributed to borrowing in the classifications of both Stephen Wurm (1975) and Malcolm Ross (2005), where Oksapmin was placed as an independent branch of Trans–New Guinea. Loughnane (2009)^[5] and Loughnane and Fedden (2011)^[6] conclude that it is related to the Ok languages, though those languages share innovative features not found in Oksapmin. Usher finds Oksapmin is not related to the Ok languages specifically, though it is related at some level to the southwestern branches of Trans–New Guinea.

Phonology

Vowels

There are six monophthongs, /i e ə a o u/, and one diphthong, /ai/.

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
					unrounded	rounded
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Stop	voiceless		t		k	kʷ
	prenasal	ᵐb	ⁿd		ᵑɡ	ᵑɡʷ
Fricative		ɸ	s		x	xʷ
Lateral			l
Semivowel				j		w

Phoneme	Allophone
/t/	[t], [tʰ]
/k/	[k], [kʰ]
/ᵐb/	[ᵐb], [m]
/ⁿd/	[ⁿd], [n]
/ᵑɡ/	[ᵑɡ], [ŋ]
/ɸ/	[ɸ], [β], [p], [pɸ~pʰ]
/s/	[s], [z]
/x/	[x], [ɣ], [ç], [ʝ]

Tone

Oksapmin contrasts two tones: high and low.