Nama language (Papuan)

Not to be confused with Nama language or Nema language.

Nama
Region	Western Province (Papua New Guinea)
Native speakers	1,200 (2018)[1]
Language family	Yam Nambu Nama
Language codes
ISO 639-3	nmx
Glottolog	nama1266

Nama (or Noraia) is a Yam language spoken in Western Province, Papua New Guinea.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial		Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar
		plain	lab.				plain	lab.
Nasal		m	mʷ	n		ɲ	ŋ
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	(p)		t			k	kʷ
	voiced	b		d	d͡ʒ		ɡ	(ɡʷ)
	prenasal	ᵐb	ᵐbʷ	ⁿd	ⁿd͡ʒ		ᵑɡ	ᵑɡʷ
Fricative		ɸ	ɸʷ	s			ɣ
Rhotic				r
Lateral				l
Approximant						j	w

• Sounds /p/ and /ɡʷ/ only occur marginally.
• Sounds /t, d, ⁿd/ may range in articulation, varying from dental [t̪, d̪, ⁿd̪] to alveolar [t, d, ⁿd].
• /r/ can be heard as a tap [ɾ] when in rapid speech and in consonant clusters.
• /ɸ/ can become voiced as [β] when intervocalically or word-finally.
• /ɣ/ can also be heard as [ɰ] in some contexts.
• Sounds /n, r/ can occur as geminates [nː, rː].

Vowels

	Front		Central	Back
Close	i	y		u
Near-close	ɪ
Mid	e	ø	ə	o
Near-open	æ
Open			a

• Sounds /i, o, u/ can be heard as [ɪ], [ɔ], [ʊ, ʉ] within diphthongs.[2]

References

1. Nama at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
2. Siegel, Jeff (2023). A Grammar of Nama: A Papuan Language of Southern New Guinea. De Gruyter.