Sound System
The Western Pantar consonant inventory includes: voiced and voiceless stops /p t k ’/ and /b d g/; voiceless fricatives /s h/; nasals /n m ng/; trill /r/ and lateral /l/; and glides/w/ and /y/.
| labial | alveolar | velar | glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| plosive | p | t | k | ' |
| b | d | g | ||
| fricative | s | h | ||
| nasal | m | n | ng | |
| liquid | r | |||
| l | ||||
| approximant | w | y |
The glottal fricative /h/ is very lightly articulated. It occurs in both word-initial and word-medial positions. Words which begin with a glottal fricative can be difficult to distinguish from vowel-initial forms, which actually begin with a glottal stop.
| ai ‘clothing louse’ | hai ‘boat’ |
| ar ‘root’ | har ‘for you’ |
| abbang ‘shake’ | habbang ‘village’ |
Consonants /p t k b d ɡ s m n l/ contrast in length with longer (geminate) counterparts (written double).
| duba ‘slippery’ | dubba ‘push’ |
| dake ‘now’ | dakke ‘dry pandanus’ |
| dala ‘ripe’ | dalla ‘tomorrow’ |
| asi ‘roof thatch’ | assi ‘bite you’ |
| wenang ‘old man’ | wannang ‘near’ |
Read more about this topic: Western Pantar Language
Famous quotes containing the words sound and/or system:
“I’m no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system—that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up.”
—Harper Lee (b. 1926)
“The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control—”indoctrination” we might say—exercised through the mass media.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)