Mengen language

Mengen and Poeng are rather divergent dialects of an Austronesian language of New Britain in Papua New Guinea.

Mengen
Poeng
Native toPapua New Guinea
RegionNew Britain
Native speakers
(8,400 cited 1982)[1]
Dialects
  • Mengen
  • Poeng
Language codes
ISO 639-3mee
Glottologmeng1267

Phonology
Consonants
Labial Alveolar Dorsal Uvular
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive voiceless p t (k) q
voiced b (d) g
Fricative s
Rhotic r
Lateral l
Glide (w) (j)
  • Both palatalization and labialization [ʲ, ʷ] is said to occur in all consonants. Palatalized consonants only occur before back vowels, and labialized consonant sounds may occur before all vowels accept /u/.
  • /k/ is typically pronounced as uvular [q], but can also be heard as a velar [k] in free variation.
  • Gemination or length, may also occur among consonant sounds.
  • Sounds /b, ɡ/ are pronounced as voiced stops [b, ɡ], but are also heard as fricatives [β, ɣ] in intervocalic position.
  • /r/ may have variation between a trill [r], a tap [ɾ], or a voiced stop [d] within vocabulary.
  • Sounds /j, w/ are said to exist as a result of palatalization or labialization, but only in very few root words in word-initial position.
Vowels
Front Back
High i u
Mid e o
Low a
  • Sounds /a, o/ are raised to [ʌ, o̝] within the environment of consonant length.[2]

References
  1. Mengen at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. Rath, Daniel D. (1993). Mengen phonology essentials. John M. Clifton (ed.), Phonologies of Austronesian languages 2: Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics. pp. 71–98.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
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