Wutung language


Wutung is a Skou language of Papua New Guinea. It is spoken in the villages of Wutung and Sangke in Bewani-Wutung Onei Rural LLG of Sandaun Province. The two varieties are sometimes considered separate languages.

Location

The village is in Sandaun Province, on the northern coast and adjacent to the border with Indonesia. There are about 500 living in Wutung village, most of whom speak Wutung.
The nearby villages of Musu and Nyao Kono have closely related languages which are named after their villages. These three speech varieties are very closely related and are mutually intelligible.

Phonology

Wutung has fifteen consonants and seven vowels, six of which have nasal variants. This gives a total of 28 phonemes. Wutung also makes suprasegmental distinctions in tone.

Consonants

Wutung is one of the very few languages that lack dorsal consonants.

Vowels

Wutung has thirteen vowels, which includes seven oral and six nasal vowels. The table below shows the oral vowels. Each of these vowels, apart from the close-mid vowel ur /ɵ/, has an equivalent nasal vowel. The nasal vowels are indicated using the same symbol as the equivalent oral, but with a following ng, e.g. ca, 'pig' vs. cang 'blossom', the latter having the nasal vowel.
FrontCentralBack
Closei
u
Midey
ur
o
Opene
a

Pronouns

Wutung has a simple system of personal pronouns with three persons, two numbers and gender in the third person singular pronouns. The same set of pronouns are used for object and subject.