Boazi language explained

Boazi
Nativename:	Kuni
Region:	Papua New Guinea
Speakers:	4,500
Date:	2007
Ref:	e18
Familycolor:	Papuan
Fam1:	Anim
Fam2:	Marind-Boazi-Yaqai
Fam3:	Kuni-Boazi
Iso3:	kvg
Glotto:	kuni1265
Glottorefname:	Kuni-Boazi

Boazi (Bwadji), also known as Kuni after one of its dialects, is a Papuan language spoken in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea by the Bwadji people in the vicinity of Lake Murray and is written using the Latin script, with for pronounced as //ɛ//, for pronounced as //ʌ//, and (꞉) for (relatively infrequent) vowel length. Some recordings of songs and stories have been made in this language.^[1]

Phonology

!Labial!Alveolar!Velar!Uvular

Plosive	voiceless	p	t	k	q
	prenasal	ᵐb	ⁿd	ᵑɡ	ᶰq
	voiced	b	d	ɡ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	x
	voiced	v	z	ɣ
Nasal		m	n
Liquid			l ~ ɾ

• /l/ can fluctuate as sounds [l ~ d ~ ɾ]. Sounds [ɾ] and [d] are more common in word-medial positions.
• /q/ may also be heard as a retracted velar plosive [k̠] in free variation.
• /ᶰq/ can also be heard as a prenasal velar fricative [ᵑɣ] in free variation.
• Sounds /s, z/ tend to become alveolo-palatal [ɕ, ʑ] when in the environment of a high vowel.
• Sounds /v, z/ tend to be devoiced [v̥, z̥] in word-final positions.
• /f/ may be heard in free fluctuation with [θ] within the environment of a high vowel.

Vowels!!Front!Central!Back

High	i		u
High-mid	e		o
Low-mid	ɛ		ʌ
Low		a

Further reading

• Drabbe, Petrus. 1954. Talen en dialecten van zuid-west Nieuw-Guinea [Languages and Dialects of Southwest New Guinea]. Posieux/Fribourg: Instituut Anthropos.
• Edwards-Fumey, Deborah. 2006. The verb subject prefix in Kuni. MA thesis: Universität Bern.

Notes and References

1. Web site: worldbibles.org. World Bibles.