| Language name: | TIWI |
| UPSID number: | 8351 |
| Alternate name(s): | |
| Classification: | Australian, Ungrouped |
| This language has | 26 segments |
| Its Frequency index is | 0.382056967 (average percentage of segments; 0.1: many very rare segments; 0.39: average; 0.7: many common segments) |
| The language has these sounds: | p m tD nD t n k N l r.A j w gF a i O u t. n. l. mp ntD nt nt. Nk r[ |
| Comment: | Retroflex consonants (except the rhotic) do not occur initially. Lee (1984) suggests that labialization of consonants can be predicted from occurrence of the vowel /o/. Other analyses have proposed distinctive labialized bilabial and velar consonants. |
| Source(s): | Osborne, C.R. 1974. The Tiwi Language (Australian Aboriginal Studies 55). Australian Institute for Aboriginal Studies, Canberra. Lee, J.R. 1983. Tiwi Today: a study of language change in a contact situation. Ph.D. Dissertation, Australian National University, Canberra. Lee, J.R. 1984. Changes in the roundedness feature in Tiwi. Australian Linguistics Society. |