Yelî Dnye language
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The Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New Britain in a tentative Yele-West New Britain family. There are about 4000 speakers.
Yele is one of the better known East Papuan languages. It has been studied extensively by cognitive linguists. One of its interesting features is its extensive set of spatial postpositions. For example, Yele has eleven postpositions equivalent to English on; using different ones depending on such things as whether the object is on a table (horizontal), a wall (vertical), or atop a peak; whether or not it is attached to the surface; and whether it is solid or granular (distributed).
Yele also has a uniquely rich set of doubly articulated consonants. In nearly all the languages of the world which have them, these are labial-velar consonants — that is, they are pronounced simultaneously with the lips and the back of the tongue, such as a simultaneous p and k. Only Yele contrasts other doubly articulated consonants: it also has distinct labial-alveolar and labial-postalveolar consonants, as illustrated below.
| Stops in Yelî Dnye | Bilabial | Pre-alveolar | Postalveolar | Velar | Labial-prealveolar | Labial-postalveolar | Labial-velar | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oral stop | side | knife | tongue | spear | lung | horn | coconut bag | ||||||||
| Prenasalized stop | carry | food | firewood | tree | pulp | many | fog | ||||||||
| Nasal stop | road | juice | feast | lease | bird | we | breast | ||||||||
The two coronal articulations are (1) laminal and slightly pre-alveolar, sometimes transcribed tʸ, nʸ, etc., and (2) apical and slightly post-alveolar, sometimes transcribed ṭ, ṇ etc. or simply t, n etc.
Pronouns
Yélî Dnye has two sets of pronouns: free and possessive. They are,
I
awe two
niwe
ɳ͡mɨthou
{{IPAyou two
ʈ͡pɨyou
n͡mes/he
uthey
yiSee also
References
- Peter Ladefoged & Ian Maddieson, 1996. The sounds of the world’s languages. Oxford: Blackwells. ISBN 0-631-19814-8
- Stephen C. Levinson, 2003. Space in Language and Cognition: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-01196-5
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