Nama language (Papuan) explained

Nama
Region:	Western Province (Papua New Guinea)
Speakers:	1,200
Date:	2018
Ref:	e24
Familycolor:	Papuan
Fam1:	Yam
Fam2:	Nambu
Iso3:	nmx
Glotto:	nama1266
Glottorefname:	Nama (Papua New Guinea)

Nama (or Noraia) is a Yam language spoken in Western Province, Papua New Guinea.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial		Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar
		plain	lab.	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	plain	lab.
Nasal		m	mʷ	n		ɲ	ŋ
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	(p)		t			k	kʷ
	voiced	b		d	d͡ʒ		ɡ	(ɡʷ)
	prenasal	ᵐb	ᵐbʷ	ⁿd	ⁿd͡ʒ		ᵑɡ	ᵑɡʷ
Fricative		ɸ	ɸʷ	s			ɣ
Rhotic				r
Lateral				l
Approximant						j	w

Sounds /p/ and /ɡʷ/ only occur marginally.
Sounds /t, d, ⁿd/ may range in articulation, varying from dental [t̪, d̪, ⁿd̪] to alveolar [t, d, ⁿd].
/r/ can be heard as a tap [ɾ] when in rapid speech and in consonant clusters.
/ɸ/ can become voiced as [β] when intervocalically or word-finally.
/ɣ/ can also be heard as [ɰ] in some contexts.
Sounds /n, r/ can occur as geminates [nː, rː].

Vowels

	Front		Central	Back
Close	i	y		u
Near-close	ɪ
Mid	e	ø	ə	o
Near-open	æ
Open			a

Sounds /i, o, u/ can be heard as [ɪ], [ɔ], [ʊ, ʉ] within diphthongs.^[1]

Notes and References

Book: Siegel, Jeff . A Grammar of Nama: A Papuan Language of Southern New Guinea . De Gruyter . 2023.