Native speakers (8,000 cited 1991) | ||
Language family Trans–New GuineaCentral & South New Guinea ?Ok–OksapminOksapmin Dialects Upper OksapminLower Oksapmin | ||
Oksapmin is a Trans–New Guinea language spoken in Telefomin District, Sandaun, Papua New Guinea. It has been influenced by the Ok languages (indeed, the name "Oksapmin" is from an Ok language), and the similarities with those languages were attributed to borrowing in the classifications of both Stephen Wurm (1975) and Malcolm Ross (2005), where Oksapmin was placed as an independent branch of Trans–New Guinea. However, Loughnane (2009) and Loughnane and Fedden (2011) demonstrated that it is related to the Ok languages, though they share innovative features not found in Oksapmin.
Contents
The two principal dialects are distinct enough to cause some problems with mutually intelligibility.
Oksapmin has dyadic kinship terms and a body-part counting system that goes up to 27.
Vowels
There are seven monophthongs, /i e ə a o ʉ u/, and one diphthong, /ai/.
Tone
Oksapmin contrasts two tones: high and low.