Boazi language

Boazi (Bwadji), also known as Kuni after one of its dialects, is a Papuan language spoken in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea by the Bwadji people in the vicinity of Lake Murray and is written using the Latin script, with for , for , and for (relatively infrequent) vowel length. Some recordings of songs and stories have been made in this language.

Phonology

• /l/ can fluctuate as sounds [l ~ d ~ ɾ]. Sounds [ɾ] and [d] are more common in word-medial positions.
• /q/ may also be heard as a retracted velar plosive [kÌ ] in free variation.
• /ᶰq/ can also be heard as a prenasal velar fricative [ᵑɣ] in free variation.
• Sounds /s, z/ tend to become alveolo-palatal [ɕ, ʑ] when in the environment of a high vowel.
• Sounds /v, z/ tend to be devoiced [vÌ¥, zÌ¥] in word-final positions.
• /f/ may be heard in free fluctuation with [θ] within the environment of a high vowel.

Further reading

• Drabbe, Petrus. 1954. Talen en dialecten van zuid-west Nieuw-Guinea [Languages and Dialects of Southwest New Guinea]. Posieux/Fribourg: Instituut Anthropos.
• Edwards-Fumey, Deborah. 2006. The verb subject prefix in Kuni. MA thesis: Universität Bern.

References