Wano language explained

Wano
Region:	Puncak Regency and Puncak Jaya Regency, Central Papua
Speakers:	1,000
Date:	2011
Ref:	e18
Familycolor:	Papuan
Fam1:	Trans–New Guinea
Fam2:	West Trans–New Guinea (Irian Highlands)
Fam3:	Dani
Iso3:	wno
Glotto:	wano1243
Glottorefname:	Wano

Wano is a Papuan language spoken by the Wano people in Puncak and Puncak Jaya regencies of the Indonesian province of Central Papua.

Phonology

Consonant phonemes^[1]
	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Plosive	pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Fricative	pronounced as /link/
Approximant			pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/

Vowel phonemes
	Front	Back
High	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Mid	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Close	pronounced as /link/

As well as the monophthongs described above, Wano also has seven diphthongs: pronounced as //i̯a/, /ɛi̯/, /ai̯/, /au̯/, /ɔi̯/, /ɔu̯/, and /ui̯//.^[1]

Allophony

The voiced plosives /pronounced as /link// and /pronounced as /link// are imploded to pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/ when word-initially and intervocalically.^[1]
When a nasal occurs before /pronounced as /link//, /pronounced as /link// becomes a prenasalized voiced plosive [ᵐb]. Similarly, when a nasal occurs before /pronounced as /link// or /pronounced as /link//, they become, respectively, [ⁿd] and [ᵑɡ].^[1]
pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/ intervocalically become pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/.
/pronounced as /link//, /pronounced as /link//, /pronounced as /link//, and /pronounced as /link//'s allophone, [ᵑɡ] become labialized before /pronounced as /link//, with /pronounced as /link// becoming [{{IPA link|ɣʷ}}].^[1]
The sequences /tj/ and /dj/ become the palatal fricatives /pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link//.^[1] However, this analysis more signifies the corresponding Dutch digraphs, since these have no morphological significance, and in the modern orthography these are written as ⟨c⟩ and ⟨j⟩.

Orthography

Here is the orthography used by Willem Burung on his works. These are not necessarily separate letters.

Letter	IPA	Letter	IPA	Letter	IPA
a	pronounced as /link/	j	pronounced as /link/	o	pronounced as /link/
b	pronounced as /link/	k	pronounced as /link/	p	pronounced as /link/
c	pronounced as /link/	kʷ	pronounced as /link/	t	pronounced as /link/
d	pronounced as /link/	m	pronounced as /link/	u	pronounced as /link/
e	pronounced as /link/	mb	pronounced as /link/	v	pronounced as /link/
g	pronounced as /link/	n	pronounced as /link/	w	pronounced as /link/
gw	pronounced as /link/	nd	pronounced as /link/	y	pronounced as /link/
i	pronounced as /link/	ngg	pronounced as /link/

Grammar

Nouns

Inalienable nouns could be pluralized by suffixing -i (after consonants) or -vi (after vowels), while alienable nouns do not (similar to Indonesian, where pluralization is optional). The inalienable plurals can be postposed with numerals (aburi kena "her two children").

Bibliography

Burung . Willem . A grammar of Wano . 2016 . PhD . University of Oxford .

Notes and References

Book: Burung, Willem . The Phonology of Wano . SIL International . 2007.