'Auhelawa language

’Auhelawa
Spoken in	Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea
Native speakers	1,200  (date missing)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Western Papuan Tip Nuclear Suauic ’Auhelawa
Writing system	Latin alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kud
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’Auhelawa is an Austronesian language spoken by about 1,200 people (as of 1998^[update]) in Nuakata Island and the southeastern tip of Normanby Island in Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea.

’Auhelawa examples

A: Auge, yauwedo. Haidova u lalau? (My friend, hello. Where are you going?)

B: Ya lalau oyai. Yagu oya vauvauna ya tudai. Owa haidova u lau? (I am going to the garden. I dig my new garden. Where did you go?)

A: Ya dobi gogowai yada bada ehebo ya ita. Teina gona sabate mata yana vada vauvauna ya abi. (I went down to the village to see one of our uncles. Next week I will build his new house.)

B: Yau dova nuwanuwagu yada bada ya hagui. Ebe u dobi u vada abi, u lauma u vaigau ta dobi ta paihowa. (I also want to help our uncle. When you go down to housebuild, you come and get me and we go down and work.)

A: Ausala. Mata ta itago. (Good. We will see you.)

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Back
High	i	u
Mid	ɛ	ɔ
Low	a

Consonants

		Bilabial		Alveolar	Palatal		Velar		Glottal
		Plain	Labialized		Plain	Labialized	Plain	Labialized	Plain	Labialized
Stop	Voiceless	p	pʷ	t			(k)		ʔ	ʔʷ
	Voiced	b	bʷ	d			ɡ	ɡʷ
Nasal		m	mʷ	n
Fricative	Voiceless			s					h
	Voiced		β
Approximant					j	ɥ
Lateral approximant				l

/k/ occurs only in loanwords.

Writing system

’Auhelawa is written in the Latin alphabet. About 85% of the population is literate.

A a	B b	Bw bw	D d	E e	G g	Gw gw	H h	I i	K k	L l	M m	Mw mw
/a/	/b/	/bʷ/	/d/	/ɛ/	/ɡ/	/ɡʷ/	/h/	/i/	/k/	/l/	/m/	/mʷ/
N n	O o	P p	Pw pw	S s	T t	U u	V v	W w	Y y	’	’W ’w]]
/n/	/ɔ/	/p/	/pʷ/	/s/	/t/	/u/	/β/	/ɥ/	/j/	/ʔ/	/ʔʷ/

External links

• Ethnologue report for language code:kud