Kuman language (New Guinea)
Kuman is a language of Chimbu Province, Papua New Guinea. In 1994, it was estimated that 80,000 people spoke Kuman, 10,000 of them monolinguals; in the 2000 census, 115,000 were reported, with few monolinguals. Ethnologue also reported 70,000 second language speakers in 2021.
Phonology
Consonants
- Voiced plosives are usually prenasal, but may fluctuate in word-initial position as ordinary voiced stops.
- Voiceless stops are always aspirated in word-initial position.
- only occurs word-medially and word-finally. In word-final position it is heard as a trill.
- can be pronounced as, in word-initial position.
- can be pronounced as before front vowels.
- Like other Chimbu languages, Kuman has rather unusual lateral consonants. is heard as voiceless velar lateral when preceding a consonant. It is also heard as a voiceless alveolar fricative before an /s/. It may also be realized as a "laterally released velar affricate" which is voiced word medially and voiceless word finally.
Vowels
- /a/ can be heard as either central or back in free variation.
- /e/ is pronounced as as a first vowel in a word.
- /o/ is pronounced in its lax form as before /ɾ/.