Sudest language explained

Sudest
Also Known As:	Tagula
Region:	Tagula Island, Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea
Speakers:	2,000
Date:	1987
Ref:	e18
Familycolor:	Austronesian
Fam2:	Malayo-Polynesian
Fam3:	Oceanic
Fam4:	Western
Fam5:	Papuan Tip
Fam6:	Nimoa–Sudest
Iso3:	tgo
Glotto:	sude1239
Glottorefname:	Sudest

Sudest, also known as Tagula, is an Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea.

Name

The name Sudest is a word meaning 'southeast' in French or Italian.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial		Dental/ Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
		plain	lab.			plain	lab.
Plosive	voiceless	p	pʷ	t		k	kʷ
	voiced	b	bʷ	d	ɟ	ɡ	ɡʷ
	prenasal	ᵐb	ᵐbʷ	ⁿd	ᶮɟ	ᵑɡ	ᵑɡʷ
Fricative	voiced	β	βʷ	ð		ɣ	ɣʷ
	voiceless			s
Nasal		m	mʷ	n	ɲ	ŋ	ŋʷ
Rhotic				r
Lateral				l
Approximant					j		w

• pronounced as //ɣ// is heard as a glottal pronounced as /[h]/ before pronounced as //o// or pronounced as //u//.
• pronounced as //ɣʷ// is heard as pronounced as /[hʷ]/, in free variation within different dialects.
• pronounced as //β, βʷ// are originally bilabial, although many speakers under the influence of English pronounce them as labio-dental pronounced as /[v, vʷ]/.^[1]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e	ə	o
Open		a

External links

• Paradisec has two collections of Arthur Cappell's materials (AC1, AC2) and one collection of Malcolm Ross's (MR1) materials that include Sudest-language materials.

Notes and References

1. Book: Anderson. Mike. Sudest. Ross. Malcolm. Richmond: Curzon. 2002. The Oceanic Languages. 322–346.