Iwam language

Iwam
Spoken in	Sandaun Province
Native speakers	3,000  (1998)
Language family	Sepik Upper Sepik Iwam Iwam
Language codes
ISO 639-3	iwm
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Iwam or May River Iwam is a language of Papua New Guinea spoken in Sandaun Province.^[1]

Phonology

Vowels^[2]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e	ə	o
Open		a

In non-final positions, /u/ /o/, /i/, and /e/ are [ʊ] [ɔ], [ɪ], and [ɛ], respectively. /ə/ appears only in nonfinal syllables. When adjacent to nasal consonants, vowels are nasalized; nasalization may also occur when adjacent to word boundaries.^[2]

Consonants^[2]

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Plosive	p	t		k
Fricative		s			h
Flap		r
Approximant			j	w

/p/ and /k/ are voiced fricatives ([β] and [ɣ]) respectively) when intervocalic and unreleased when final (/t/ is also unreleased when final). /ŋ/ is a nasal flap ([ɾ̃]) word-initially and between vowels. /s/ is [ts] initially and may otherwise be palatalized [sʲ].^[2] Sequences of any consonant and /w/ are neutralized before /u/ where an offglide is always heard.

Phonotactics

Bilabial and velar consonants and /n/ may be followed by /w/ when initial. Other initial clusters include /pr/, /kr/, /hr/, /hw/, and /hn/ and final clusters are /w/ or /j/ followed by any consonant except for /h/ or /ŋ/.^[2]

Notes

1. ^ Ethnologue.
2. ^ ^{a b c d e} Laycock (1965:115)

References

• Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.) (2005). "Iwam". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (Fifteenth ed.). Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. 
• Laycock, D.C. (1965). "Three Upper Sepik phonologies". Oceanic Linguistics (University of Hawai'i Press) 4 (1/2): 113–118. doi:10.2307/3622917. JSTOR 3622917