ISO 639-3 iwm | Native speakers 3,000 (1998) Glottolog iwam1256 | |
Language family SepikUpper SepikIwamMay River Iwam | ||
May River Iwam, or just Iwam (cf. Sepik Iwam), is a language of Papua New Guinea.
Contents
Phonology
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.
/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]. 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/.