Huli language

Huli is a Tari language spoken by the Huli people of the Hela Province of Papua New Guinea. It has a pentadecimal (base-15) numeral system: ngui means 15, ngui ki means 15×2 = 30, and ngui ngui means 15×15 = 225.

Huli
Huli Wigman from Hela Province of Papua New Guinea
Region	Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea
Ethnicity	Huli people
Native speakers	150,000 (2011)[1]
Language family	Trans-New Guinea? Engan South Engan Huli
Writing system	Latin script (Huli alphabet) Huli Braille
Language codes
ISO 639-3	hui
Glottolog	huli1244

Huli has a pandanus language called tayenda tu ha illili (bush divide taboo) used for collecting karuka nuts (anga) as well as hunting or traveling.^[2] Tayenda is used to evade malevolent bush spirits.^[2] The grammar for Tayenda is nearly identical to normal Huli, but the vocabulary is changed, often borrowing words from Duna but with changed meanings.^[2]

Phonology

Huli has a syllable structure of (C)V.

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i ĩ	u ũ
Mid	e ẽ	o õ
Open	ɑ ɑ̃

/ɑ/ is pronounced more fronted as [æ] before /r/ and /ʝ/.^[3]

Vowel nasality is phonemic in the language. Vowels can also carry three phonemic tones; high-falling, mid-level, and low-rising.

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n			ŋ
Stop	voiceless	p	t			k
	voiced	b	d			g
	prenasal	ᵐb	ⁿd			ᵑɡ
Fricative					ʝ		h
Approximant		w		ɭ
Trill			r

Stops /p t k/ can become aspirated as [pʰ tʰ kʰ].

Many speakers pronounce /t/ as [s] before /i/.

/d/ is realized as voiceless as [d̥] when occurring word-initially, and is palatalized as [dʲ] between /i/ and a word-final /ɑ/.

/r/ only occurs word-medially.

/b ɡ/ can be phonetically realized as fricatives intervocalically as [β ɣ].

References

1. Huli at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Goldman, Laurence (1983). "Talking about talk". Talk Never Dies: The Language of Huli Disputes. London and New York: Tavistock Publications. pp. 254–257. ISBN 978-0422782104. OCLC 993340993.
3. Organised Phonology Data: Huli Language [HUI] Southern Highlands Province (PDF). 1992. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2017-03-11.

• Lomas, Gabe (1988). The Huli language of Papua New Guinea. PhD Thesis, Macquarie University.

External links

• Timothy Usher, New Guinea World, Huli on New Guinea World
• Huli counting system Archived 2007-04-24 at the Wayback Machine
• Huli phonology
• "Counting and number in Huli", Brian Cheetam. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education^{[dead link‍]}