Eastern Malayo-Polynesian Languages - SAA Language, Sawai Language, Halmahera-Cenderawasih Languages, Biak Language, South Halmahera Languages (Paperback)

Chapters: Saa Language, Sawai Language, Halmahera-Cenderawasih Languages, Biak Language, South Halmahera Languages, Halmahera Sea Languages, Raja Ampat Languages, Woi Language, Taba Language, Yapen Languages, Ambai Language, Ansus Language. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 42. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Sa or Saa language is an Austronesian language spoken in southern Pentecost Island, Vanuatu. It had an estimated 2,500 speakers in the year 2000. Sa has numerous dialects, with no well-established names or boundaries. At a meeting in 2008, speakers recognised four main dialects, with sub-dialectal variation and mixing of dialects in some areas. The two central dialects are relatively similar to one another and are generally understood by all Sa speakers. Most writing and research in Sa has been in one of these dialects: There are also two outlying dialects, which are highly distinctive and difficult for speakers of other dialects to understand: The distinctive speech of villages such as Bunlap, Bay Barrier (Ranon) and Wanur appears to comprise mixtures of neighbouring dialects. People in southern Pentecost remember the existence of additional dialects that are now extinct. The consonants of Sa include b, d, g, h, k, l, m, n, ng (as in English "singer"), p, r, s, t, and w. In most dialects there is also j (occasionally written "ts"), which is apparently an allophone of t found before the vowels i and u although speakers regard it separately. Most speakers also use labiovelar bw, mw and pw, although from some speakers of outlying dialects these are indistinguishable from normal b, m and p. In additional to these consonants, F dialect has a bilabial f. In F dialect s may be pronounced like English sh. As a general rule, clusters of consonants do not occur within a syllable. Word...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=522470