Native speakers 800 (1993) Glottolog sika1263 | Region New Guinea ISO 639-3 tty | |
Language family Lakes PlainTarikuEast TarikuAlikiSikaritai | ||
Sikaritai (Sikwari) is a Lakes Plain language of Papua, Indonesia. It is named after Sikari village. It's gone by various names: Aikwakai, Araikurioko, Ati, Tori, Tori Aikwakai.
Contents
Sikaritai, Obokuitai, and Eritai constitute a dialect cluster.
Phonology
The following discussion is based on Martin (1991).
Consonants
This small consonant inventory is typical of Lakes Plain languages. The complete lack of nasals is also a feature of these languages.
Vowels
Sikaritai has five vowels.
Many other Lakes Plain languages have developed a series of extra high "fricativized" vowels from the loss of a final consonant. In Sikaritai the final consonants have been retained; however, extra-high [i] and [u]]appear as allophones of /i/ and /u/ before final /g/ and /d/. Martin postulates that Sikaritai is in the process of developing contrastive fricativized vowels as other Lakes Plain languages have done.
Tone
The language has a two-height tone system with H and L tone. More than one tonal element can appear on a single syllable.
Syllables
The syllable template is (C)(C)V(V)(C).