Terei language explained

Terei
Nativename:	Buin
Region:	Bougainville
Date:	2003
Ref:	e18
Familycolor:	Papuan
Fam1:	South Bougainville
Fam2:	Buinic
Fam3:	Buin
Iso3:	buo
Glotto:	tere1278
Glottorefname:	Terei

Terei or Buin, also known as Telei, Rugara, is the most populous Papuan language spoken to the east of New Guinea. There are about 27,000 speakers in the Buin District of Bougainville Province, Papua New Guinea.

Phonology

The phonology of the Buin language:^[1]

Consonant sounds!! Labial! Alveolar! Velar

Plosive	p	t	k g
Nasal	m	n	ŋ
Liquid		ɾ (l)

The /ɡ/ sound does not occur word-initially and is often fricativised as [ɣ]. The phoneme /ɾ/ following an /n/ is pronounced as [d], and also occurs as [l] for an allophonic variant. When a /t/ sound occurs before an /i/, it is always pronounced as [tsi], and when occurring before a /u/ or /a/, it may be realized as [tsu] or [tsa] depending on the dialect.

Vowel sounds!!Front!Back

High	pronounced as /i/	pronounced as /u/
Mid	pronounced as /e/	pronounced as /o/
Low	pronounced as /a/

External links

• Paradisec has a number of collections with materials for Terei language two collections of Arthur Cappell's materials (AC1, AC2).

Notes and References

1. Laycock, (2003). Pacific Linguistics.