Last updated: 2020-03-28
Background
Language Family: Trans-New Guinean / Main Section / Central and Western / Huon-Finisterre / Huon / Eastern
- Also referred to as Kosorong, it is spoken by approximately 2000 speakers in Papua New Guinea.
Phonology
Consonants
- /ts/ is rather marginal (Olkkonen 2000, 4).
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Place of Articulation
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Manner of Articulation
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Labial
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Alveolar
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Palatal
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Velar
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Labiovelar
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Glottal
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Stops
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p b
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t d
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k ɡ
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kp ɡb
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Affricates
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ts dz
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Fricatives
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f
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s
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h
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Nasals
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m
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n
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ŋ
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Trills
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r
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Approximants
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w
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l
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j
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Note: For phonemes that share a cell, those on the left are voiceless and those on the right are voiced.
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Vowels
- Vowel length is contrastive in Borong (Olkkonen 2000, 5). Long vowels are represented by duplicate graphemes.
- Adjacent vowels are extremely common in Borong; however, they are interpreted as sequences rather than complex nuclei (Olkkonen 2000, 5).
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Front
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Central
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Back
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High
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i
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u
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Mid
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e
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o
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Low
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a
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Alphabet
- Olkkonen (2000) uses ⟨ŋ⟩ to represent /ŋ/ (p. 4), while Olkkonen (2001) uses ⟨ng⟩ (p. 1). I have chosen to use ⟨ŋ⟩ given that it is present in the Crúbadán corpus.
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Grapheme
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Phoneme
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a
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/a/
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b
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/b/
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d
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/d/
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e
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/e/
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f
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/f/
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g
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/ɡ/
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h
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/h/
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i
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/i/
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j
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/dz/
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k
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/k/
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l
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/l/
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m
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/m/
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n
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/n/
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ŋ
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/ŋ/
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o
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/o/
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p
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/p/
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q
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/kp/
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r
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/r/
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s
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/s/
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t
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/t/
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u
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/u/
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w
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/w/
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y
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/j/
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z
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/ts/
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Digraph
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gb
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/ɡb/
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Syllable Structure
- Syllables in Borong follow the order of (C)V(V)(C) (Olkkonen 2000, 6).
- CV and CVC are the most common structures.
Misc. Rules
- /p/, /t/, and /k/ are aspirated in syllable-initial positions (Olkkonen 2001, 5).
- /w/ may be realized as [v] (Olkkonen 2000, 4).
- Nasals assimilate in place to following consonants (Olkkonen 2000, 8).
References
Olkkonen, Soini. 2000. “Borong Phonology.” SIL International.
———. 2001. “Borong Organised Phonology Data.” SIL International.