Ughele language
| Ughele | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Solomon Islands |
| Region | north Rendova Island |
|
Native speakers
|
1,200 (1999) |
|
Austronesian
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | ughe1237 |
Ughele is an Oceanic language spoken by about 1200 people on Rendova Island, located in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands.
There is no internal dialect differentiation.
The following information is gathered from Benedicte Haraldstad Frostad. "A Grammar of Ughele: A Language of The Solomon Islands". 2012. Pages 35–48
Ughele contains a five vowel inventory that is typical of most Oceanic languages. These are differentiated by changes in the place of articulation and the degree of stricture required to produce the sound. Lip rounding only accounts for the differentiation of two segments. These are the close-mid back vowel /o/ and the close back vowel /u/.
This inventory consists of three front vowels: /i/, /e/, /a/; two back /o/, /u/ and no central phonemes.
There is no variation in vowel length. ====Minimal pairs==== These are distinguished by places of articulation
/veke/ and /veko/ - 'flying fox’ and ‘bald’ /ɣami/ and /ɣamu/ - ‘we/us’ and ‘you’
/patu/ and /petu/ - ‘stone’ and ‘mangrove’ /tina/ and /tini/ - ‘thousand ‘ and ‘body’ /neka/ and /nika/ - ‘slippery cabbage’ and ‘fire’ /kopi/ and /kupi/ - ‘lake’ and ‘to pick’
Ughele has 18 consonants and no consonant clusters, unless spoken accidentally.
Ughele contains bilabial, alveolar and velar stops. These are /b + p/ , /d + t/ and /g + k/ respectively. As well as voiced and unvoiced pairs for all plosives. - /ba/ and /pa/ /made/ and /mate/ (four and die/dead) /poga/ and /poka/ (to make pudding/pudding and nail) All voiced stops are pre-nasalised, however the degree of this varies between speakers. Pronunciation of this runs from barely audible nasalisation to almost fully nasalised segments. E.g. /b/ → /b̃/, /d/ → /d̃/, /g/ → /g̃/
There is only one found in Ughele, this is in the lexeme /arozo/ (rope)
Voiced alveolar plosive /mada/ ‘to let’, and fricative, /maza/ ‘flesh’ Unvoiced alveolar plosive /tabu/ ‘holy’, and fricative /sabu/ ‘hunt’ Voiced velar plosive ' /gu/ ‘1st/p possessive’, and fricative /ɣu/ ‘just’
Prior to the efforts of Frostard et al. Ughele had no documented history or written language standard. After these efforts Ughele is now written in Latin script as shown in these notes.
Ughele, like many other Oceanic languages, possesses a complex pronominal system that includes personal, relative and interrogative pronouns (Frostad, 2012, p. 81-88).
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