Dusner language

Dusner is a language spoken in the village of Dusner in the province of West Papua, Indonesia. Dusner is highly endangered, and has been reported to have just three remaining speakers.^[2][1][3]

Dusner
Native to	West Papua, Indonesia
Region	Cenderawasih Bay
Native speakers	3 (2011)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian Eastern Malayo-Polynesian South Halmahera–West New Guinea Cenderawasih Bay Biakic Dusner–Tandia Dusner
Language codes
ISO 639-3	dsn
Glottolog	dusn1237
ELP	Dusner
Dusner Show map of Western New Guinea Dusner Show map of Indonesia Dusner Show map of Southeast Asia
Coordinates: 2.74°S 134.39°E / -2.74; 134.39

Sociolinguistic situation

The language is highly endangered with only three speakers reported to be remaining.^[2][1][3] In 2011, researchers from Oxford University's Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics began a project to document the vocabulary and grammar of the language, in collaboration with UNIPA (State University of Papua) and UNCEN (Cenderawasih University, Papua).^[4][5] The project outputs were a vocabulary, a published grammar,^[2] and a website documenting the language.

Phonology

The phoneme inventory of Dusner consists of five vowels and 19 consonants (five of which are only attested in loanwords from Indonesian/Papuan Malay).^[2]

Vowels^[2]

	front	back
high	i	u
mid	e	o
low		a

Consonants^[2]

		labial	alveolar	palatal	velar	glottal
nasal		m	n	(ɲ)	ŋ
plosive/ affricate	voiceless	p	t	(t͡ʃ)	k
	voiced	b	d	(d͡ʒ)	g
fricative		β	s			(h)
liquid			r (l)
glide		w		j

(Phonemes in parentheses in the table are only attested in loanwords from Papuan Malay)

There is no tone in the language. The phonology of the language has a high number of complex syllable onsets, some of them contravening the Sonority Sequencing Principle.

Morphology

References

1. Malvern, Jack (21 April 2011). "Last few speakers of Indonesian language Dusner nearly wiped out by flood, volcano". The Australian. Retrieved 24 April 2011.
2. Dalrymple, Mary; Mofu, Suriel (2012). Dusner. LINCOM Europa. ISBN 9783862882786.
3. "April 21, 2011: articles on the Dusner language, spoken by 3 last speakers". SOROSORO: So the languages of the world may live on!. Retrieved 2013-02-08.
4. Alleyne, Richard (2011-04-21). "Oxford University mission to save a language spoken by three people". Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2011-04-24. Retrieved 2013-02-08.
5. "Multimodal language documentation for Dusner, an endangered language of Papua". University of Oxford, Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics. Retrieved 2013-02-08.

External links

• "Multimodal language documentation for Dusner, an endangered language of Papua". University of Oxford, Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics. Retrieved 2013-02-08.