Nehan

Last updated: 2020-01-24

Background

Language family: Austronesian / Malayo-Polynesian / Central-Eastern / Eastern Malayo-Polynesian / Oceanic / Western Oceanic / Meso Melanesian / New Ireland / South New Ireland-Northwest Solomonic / Nehan-North Bougainville / Nehan

• Nehan is spoken in the Bougainville province of Papua New Guinea.

Phonology

Consonants

	Place of Articulation
Manner of Articulation	Labial	Alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Stops	p b	t d	k ɡ
Fricatives		s		h
Nasals	m	n	ŋ
Trills		r
Approximants		l
Note: For phonemes that share a cell, those on the left are voiceless and those on the right are voiced.

Vowels

• Vowels often appear adjacent to one another in Nehan; however, based on the syllable structure discussed below, it appears that they are interpreted as separate (“Nehan Organised Phonology Data” 1990, 3).

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	ɛ		ɔ
Low		a

Alphabet

Grapheme	Phoneme
a	/a/
b	/b/
d	/d/
e	/ɛ/
g	/ɡ/
h	/h/
i	/i/
k	/k/
l	/l/
m	/m/
n	/n/
o	/ɔ/
p	/p/
r	/r/
s	/s/
t	/t/
u	/u/
Digraph
ng	/ŋ/

Syllable Structure

• Syllables in Nehan consist of the following structures (“Nehan Organised Phonology Data” 1990, 3):
  • V
  • VC
  • CV
  • CVC

Misc. Rules

• All stops, /m/, /s/ and /h/ labialize preceding /uV/ (“Nehan Organised Phonology Data” 1990, 3).

References

“Nehan Organised Phonology Data.” 1990. SIL.