Ese

Last Updated: 2020-06-30

Background

Language Family: Trans-New Guinea / Main Section / Eastern / Central and Southeastern / Koiarian / Baraic

• The language is also known as Managalasi and is spoken in the Oro province of Papua New Guinea.

Phonology

Consonants

	Place of Articulation
Manner of Articulation	Labial	Alveolar	Alveopalatal	Velar	Glottal
Stops	p	t		k	ʔ
Affricates			tɕ dʑ
Fricatives	β	s			h
Nasals	m	n
Flaps		ɾ
Note: For phonemes that share a cell, those on the left are voiceless and those on the right are voiced.

Vowels

• An acute accent (´) on graphemes ⟨a⟩, ⟨e⟩, and ⟨i⟩ denote stress. We do not account for stress, so such accented vowels will be transcribed to their plain counterparts.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ʉ	u
Mid	e		o
Low			ɑ

Alphabet

Grapheme	Phoneme
a	/ɑ/
e	/e/
h	/h/
i	/i/
j	/dʑ/
k	/k/
m	/m/
n	/n/
o	/o/
p	/p/
r	/ɾ/
s	/s/
t	/t/
u	/u/
ú	/ʉ/
v	/β/
’	/ʔ/
Digraph
ch	/tɕ/

Syllable Structure

• Ese has a (C)V syllable structure (Parlier, Jim and Parlier, Jaki 1992, 2).

Lenition Rules

• Postvocalic /a/ reduces to [ə], except when followed by /ne/ or /nɑ/ (Parlier, Jim and Parlier, Judy 1963, 19).

Misc. Rules

• Word-initial /ɾ/ lateralizes to [ɺ] (Parlier, Jim and Parlier, Jaki 1992, 3).
• Parlier, Jim and Parlier, Judy (1963) also attest this process as occurring after /i/ (p. 10).
• /u/ becomes [w] before stressed vowels (Parlier, Jim and Parlier, Jaki 1992, 3; Parlier, Jim and Parlier, Jaki 1981, viii).
• /β/ goes to [b] before unstressed /u/ (Parlier, Jim and Parlier, Judy 1963, 7).
• /tɕ/ alternates with [ts] before /ɑ/ (Parlier, Jim and Parlier, Judy 1963, 8).
• /dʑ/ retroflexes (to [ɖʑ], supposedly) before non-high back vowels (Parlier, Jim and Parlier, Judy 1963, 9).
• Word-final mid vowels lower to be mid-open (Parlier, Jim and Parlier, Judy 1963, 18–20).

References

Parlier, Jim, and Parlier, Jaki. 1981. Dictionaries of Papua New Guinea: Managalasi Language. Summer Institute of Linguistics.

———. 1992. “Managalasi Organised Phonology Data.” SIL International.

Parlier, Jim, and Parlier, Judy. 1963. “Managalasi Phonology.” Summer Institute of Linguistics.