Misima-Paneati language

Misima-Paneati
Spoken in	Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea
Native speakers	18,000  (2002) 4,000 monolinguals
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Western Papuan Tip Kilivila – Nuclear Papuan Tip Misima-Paneati
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mpx
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Misima-Paneati, also called Misiman, is an indigenous Austronesian language spoken on the islands of Misima, Panaieti, and the islands of the eastern half of the Calvados Chain of Papua New Guinea.

Phonology

Vowels

Misima-Paneati has 5 vowel phonemes.^[1]

	Front	Back
High	i /i/	u /u/
Mid	e /e/	o /o/
Low	a /a ~ ə ~ ʌ/

Consonants

Misima-Paneati has 17 consonant phonemes.^[1]

		Bilabial		Alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
		Plain	Labialized			Plain	Labialized	Plain
Stop	Voiceless	p /p/	pw /pʷ/	t /t/		k /k/
	Voiced	b /b/	bw /bʷ/	d /d/		g /ɡ/	gw /ɡʷ/
Nasal		m /m/	mw /mʷ/	n /n ~ ŋ/
Fricative	Voiceless			s /s/				h /h/
	Voiced	v /β/
Approximant					y /j ~ ʝ/
Lateral approximant				l /l/

Syllables

In Misima-Paneati, the following syllable types commonly occur: V, CV, CVC, and VC.^[2]

The open syllables V and CV are found in all positions of words, whereas the closed syllables CVC and VC are only found word finally and across morpheme boundaries, with the exception of the following 5 words:^[2]

• /ˈanma/ – ‘feelings’
• /ˈkimpos/ – ‘centre pole’
• /kinˈbʷai/ – ‘fingernail’
• /sinˈɡili/ – ‘centre rib of coconut leaf’
• /tabˈnaha/ – ‘sneeze’

The only monomorphemic consonant clusters that always occur across syllable boundaries are:^[3]

• /mn/
• /mp/
• /nb/
• /ng/
• /bn/

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} Callister 1993, p. 1
2. ^ ^{a b} Callister 1993, p. 17
3. ^ Callister 1993, p. 18

References

• Callister, Sandra (2005). Baaba ana talisi ana buki. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics. ISBN 9980-0-3055-0. 
• Callister, William (1993). "Misiman phonology". Phonologies of Austronesian languages 2: 1–24. 
• Ethnologue – Languages of the World