Sikaritai language
Sikaritai (Sikwari) is a Lakes Plain language of Papua, Indonesia. It is named after Sikari village in Rafaer District, Mamberamo Raya Regency. Alternate names are Aikwakai, Araikurioko, Ati, Tori, Tori Aikwakai.
Sikaritai | |
---|---|
Tori Aikwakai | |
Native to | Indonesia |
Region | Sikari village in Rafaer District, Mamberamo Raya Regency, Papua |
Native speakers | (800 cited 1993)[1] |
Lakes Plain
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | tty |
Glottolog | sika1263 [2] |
It is spoken in Haya, Iri, and Sikari villages.[3]
Sikaritai, Obokuitai, and Eritai constitute a dialect cluster.
Phonology
The following discussion is based on Martin (1991).[4]
Consonants
Labial | Coronal | Velar | |
---|---|---|---|
Stop | b | t d | k kʷ |
Fricative | ɸ | s | |
Approximant | w |
This small consonant inventory is typical of Lakes Plain languages.[5] The complete lack of nasals is also a feature of these languages.
There are however several notable allophonic variants:
- /d/ is realized as [d ~ l] word-initially, [ɾ ~ l] between vowels or following another consonants, and as [d̚] syllable-finally.
- /k/ is realized as [g̚] syllable-finally. When followed by a vowel, the sequence /ik/ is realized as a syllabic fricative [ɣ̩]. The sequence /iko/ further varies with [u.o].
- [ɸ] is in free variation with a glottal fricative [h].
- /s/ is realized as [ʃ] following /k/.
- /i/ before another vowel is realized as either a semivowel [j] or an affricate [dʒ] (the latter when following /k/ or when between two low vowels (/ɛ/ or /a/).
Vowels
Sikaritai has six vowels.
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
High | i | u | |
Mid-high | e | ||
Mid | ɛ | o | |
Low | a |
Many other Lakes Plain languages have developed a series of extra high "fricativized" vowels from the loss of a final consonant.[5] In Sikaritai the final consonants have been retained; however, extra-high [i] and [u] appear as allophones of /i/ and /u/ before final /g/ and /d/. Martin postulates that Sikaritai is in the process of developing contrastive fricativized vowels as other Lakes Plain languages have done.
Tone
The language has a two-height tone system with H and L tone. More than one tonal element can appear on a single syllable.
Syllables
The syllable template is (C)(C)V(V)(C).
References
- Sikaritai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Sikaritai". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
- Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2019). "Indonesia languages". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (22nd ed.). Dallas: SIL International.
- Martin, David (1991). "Sikaritai phonology". Workpapers in Indonesian Languages and Cultures. 9: 91–120.
- Clouse, Duane (1997). "Toward a reconstruction and reclassification of the Lakes Plain languages of Irian Jaya". Papers in Papuan Linguistics. 3: 133–236.