| Language name: | VANIMO |
| UPSID number: | 8640 |
| Alternate name(s): | |
| Classification: | Papuan, Sko |
| This language has | 28 segments |
| Its Frequency index is | 0.332119100 (average percentage of segments; 0.1: many very rare segments; 0.39: average; 0.7: many common segments) |
| The language has these sounds: | p t b d d_ B hh s m n n_ l i e E a O o u @) i~ e~ E~ a~ O~ o~ u~ @)~ |
| Comment: | Dumo dialect. Vanimo is spoken in an area on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea near the Irian Jaya border. Ross (1980) describes it as having 3 "tones": "high", "long", and "toneless". Long tone is apparently not perceptibly longer "because Vanimo has strict syllable-timing" but it has a mid onset. The palato-alveolar stop has affricate and approximant variants. Ross considers it posible that nasalized vowels could be allophonic but conditioning is not understood. |
| Source(s): | Ross, M. 1980. "Some elements of Vanimo, a New Guinea tone language". Papers in New Guinea Linguistics 20 (Pacific Linguistics, Series A, No. 56): 77-109. |