Maisin language

Maisin
Spoken in	Oro Province, Papua New Guinea
Ethnicity	Maisin people
Native speakers	2,612 (2000 census)  (date missing)
Language family	Austronesian or Papuan.
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mbq
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.

Maisin (or Maisan) is a language of Papua New Guinea with both Austronesian and Papuan features. The Austronesian elements are those of the Nuclear Papuan Tip languages. The Papuan element is Binanderean or Dagan. It is spoken by the Maisin people of Oro Province.

Phonology

Vowels

Monophthongs

	Front	Back
High	i	u
Mid	e	o
Low	a

Diphthongs

	Ending with /i/	Ending with /e/	Ending with /a/	Ending with /o/	Ending with /u/
Starting with /i/	/ii/		/ia/
Starting with /e/	/ei/	/ee/			/eu/
Starting with /a/	/ai/		/aa/		/au/
Starting with /o/	/oi/			/oo/	/ou/
Starting with /u/			/ua/		/uu/

Consonants

		Bilabial		Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
		Unrounded	Rounded			Unrounded	Rounded
Stop	Voiceless	p		t		k	(kʷ)
	Voiced	b		d		ɡ
Nasal		m		n		(ŋ)
Fricative	Voiceless	ɸ	ɸʷ	s
	Voiced	β			ʝ
Flap				ɾ
Approximant					j		w

[ŋ] and [kʷ] are not phonemic, but are distinguished in the orthography.

Phonotactics

Syllables can begin and end with up to one consonant each. I.e., English wrong /rɔŋ/ would be an acceptable word, but strength /streŋθ/ would not. Words can only end in either a vowel or [ŋ]. The vowels /u/ and /o/ never occur word-initially. /β/ never occurs before /o/ or /u/.

Writing system

A a	B b	D d	E e	F f	Fw fw	G g	I i	J j	K k	M m
/a/	/b/	/d/	/e/	/ɸ/	/ɸʷ/	/ɡ/	/i/	/ʝ/	/k/	/m/
N n	O o	R r	S s	T t	U u	V v	W w	Y y	Kw kw	Ŋ ŋ
[n]	/o/	/ɾ/	/s/	/t/	/u/	/β/	/w/	/j/	[kʷ]	[ŋ]

Literacy varies from 20% to 80% in different areas.

References

• Ray, Sidney H. (Jul.–Dec. 1911). "Comparative notes on Maisin and other languages of eastern Papua". The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 41: 397–405. doi:10.2307/2843181. JSTOR 2843181. 
• Ross, Malcolm (1984). Maisin: a preliminary sketch. Pacific Linguistics. 
• Strong, W. M. (Jul.–Dec. 1911). "The Maisin Language". The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 41: 381–396. doi:10.2307/2843180. JSTOR 2843180. 

External links

• Bada ari Foraga ari Buandi ari nane, ai Totoruga Muanfafusi The Service of Holy Communion in the Maisin Language (1921 translation)
• Ethnologue report for language code:mbq
• Maisin organised phonology data