Tigak (or Omo) is an Austronesian language spoken by about 6,000 people (in 1991) in the Kavieng District of New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea.
The Tigak language area includes the provincial capital, Kavieng.
Phonology
Phoneme inventory of the Tigak language:
Consonant sounds| Labial | Alveolar | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k |
| voiced | b | g | ||
| Rhotic | r | |||
| Fricative | voiceless | β | s | |
| lateral | ɮ | |||
/r/ can also be realized as [ɾ] allophonically. Both /k, ɡ/ are back-released as [k̠, ɡ̠].
Vowel sounds| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | ɔ | |
| Low | a |
| Phoneme | Allophones |
|---|---|
| /i/ | [i], [ɪ], [y] |
| /e/ | [e], [ɛ] |
| /a/ | [ʌ], [a] |
Two vowels /i u/ in word-initial form can also be released as consonantal allophones [w j].2
External links
References
Gordon, Raymond G. Jr., ed. (2005). "Tigak". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (fifteenth ed.). Dallas: SIL. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapter= (help) http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=tgc ↩
Beaumont, Clive H. (1974). The Tigak Language of New Ireland. Australian National University.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) /wiki/Template:Cite_book ↩