Labu is an Austronesian language

Austronesian languages

The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...

 spoken by about 1,600 people (1989) in three older villages and one new one across the Markham River

Markham River

The Markham River is a river in eastern Papua New Guinea. It originates in the Finisterre Range and flows for to empty into the Huon Gulf at Lae....

 from Lae

Lae

Lae, the capital of Morobe Province, is the second-largest city in Papua New Guinea. It is located at the start of the Highlands Highway which is the main land transport corridor from the Highlands region to the coast...

 in Morobe Province

Morobe Province

Morobe Province is a province on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. The provincial capital, and largest city, is Lae. The province covers 34,500 km², including 719 km² maritime area, with a population of 539,725...

, Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

.

Although it belongs to the Lower Markham languages

Lower Markham languages

The seven Lower Markham languages form a group of Austronesian languages in northern Papua New Guinea. Aribwatsa is now extinct.-Components:*Busu languages**Duwet **Aribwatsa **Musom**Nafi...

, Labu appears to have been strongly influenced by the coastal languages of the Huon Gulf, Bukawa

Bukawa language

Bukawa is an Austronesian language spoken by about 10,000 people on the coast of the Huon Gulf, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea...

 in particular. For instance, Labu shows tonal contrasts, like Bukawa but unlike any of the Markham languages; and Labu numerals show separate forms for '3', '4', and '5', like Bukawa, even though salu '2', sidi '3', and sôha '4' contain the Lower Markham numeral classifier *sV-. (The pattern for numerals in the other Markham languages is '1', '2', '2+1', '2+2', then 'hand' or '2+2+1', and so on.)

Phonology

Labu distinguishes 7 vowels and 17 consonants. The vowels also exhibit contrasts between high and low pitch (or "tone"), just as in Yabêm, the Lutheran mission lingua franca for the coastal languages of Morobe Province during much of the 20th century. The orthography of Labu is based on that of Yabêm (= Jabêm), except that y replaces Yabêm j.

Vowels (orthographic)

	Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...	Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel...	Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
High	i		u
Upper mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...	ê		ô
Lower mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...	e		o
Low		a

Consonants (orthographic)

	Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...	Coronal Coronal consonant Coronal consonants are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical , laminal , domed , or subapical , as well as a few rarer orientations, because only the front of the tongue has such...	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....	Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
Voiceless stop	p	t	k
Voiced stop	b	d	g
Prenasalized Prenasalized consonant Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent that behave phonologically like single consonants. The reasons for considering these sequences to be single consonants is in their behavior, not in their actual composition...	mb	nd	ŋg
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...	m	n	ŋ
Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...		s		h
Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth....		l
Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...	w	y

Tone contrasts

The vowels of some words in Labu are distinguished by lowered pitch, which is marked orthographically by a grave accent. Labu distinctions in tone

Tone (linguistics)

Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...

 are thus based on register tone, not contour tone as in Mandarin Chinese. Register tone contrasts are a relatively recent innovation of the North Huon Gulf languages

North Huon Gulf languages

The family of North Huon Gulf languages is a subgroup of the Huon Gulf languages of Papua New Guinea. It consists of 3 languages, all of which are distinguished by severe truncation of many inherited roots and the compensatory development of suprasegmentals on vowels: phonemic tone in Yabem and...

, which many Labu speakers include in their linguistic repertoires, so one should not look back to voice contrasts in Proto-Oceanic (POc) or some other ancestral language to explain the origins of tone contrasts in Labu. Instead, one should look to areal influences, primarily from neighboring Bukawa

Bukawa language

Bukawa is an Austronesian language spoken by about 10,000 people on the coast of the Huon Gulf, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea...

.

High Tone (linguistics) Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...	Low Tone (linguistics) Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
a 'sun'	à 'tree, wood' (POc *kayu)
ani 'centipede' (POc *qalipan)	ànì 'one' (indefinite article)
maya 'shame'	mayà 'dead' (POc *mate)
ôpa 'crocodile' (POc *puqaya)	ôpà 'thought'
ô 'breadfruit' (POc *kuluR)	ồ 'garden' (POc *quma)
u 'rain' (POc *qusan)	ù 'clay pot' (POc *kuron)

Free pronouns

Person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...	Singular Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....	Dual Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....	Trial Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....	Plural Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
1st person inclusive		a(lu)	(ê)sidi	a(ha)
1st person exclusive	ai	(ê)ma(lu)	êmidi	(ê)ma(ha)
2nd person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...	yê	(yê)môlu	(yê)môdi	(yê)môha
3rd person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...	ini	(ê)salu	(ê)sidi	(ê)sôha

Genitive pronouns

Person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...	Singular Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....	Plural Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
1st person inclusive		la
1st person exclusive	nda	mê
2nd person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...	na	mê
3rd person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...	na	sê

Deictics

Labu deictics correlate with first, second, and third person, the first two of which have long and short forms. The third person singular free pronoun can also take deictic suffixes: ini-ne 'this/these one(s)', ini-lê 'that/those one(s)'. Deictics may occur either in place of nouns or postposed to nouns, as in hanô lene 'that house'.

• le(ne) 'near speaker'
• lê(nê) 'near addressee'
• laê 'away from speaker or addressee'

Numerals

Traditional Labu counting practices started with the digits of one hand, then continued on the other hand, and then the feet to reach '20', which translates as 'one person'. Higher numbers are multiples of 'one person'. Nowadays, most counting above '5' is done in Tok Pisin.

Numeral Numeral system A numeral system is a writing system for expressing numbers, that is a mathematical notation for representing numbers of a given set, using graphemes or symbols in a consistent manner....	Term	Gloss
1	tôgwatô/ànì	'one'
2	salu	'two'
3	sidi	'three'
4	sôha	'four'
5	ma-ipi	'hands-half/part'
6	ma-ipi anêndi tôgwatô (or maipa tômôlô)	'hands-half offspring/addition one'
7	ma-ipi anêndi salu (or maipa salu)	'hands-half offspring/addition two'
8	ma-ipi anêndi sidi (or maipa sidi)	'hands-half offspring/addition three'
9	ma-ipi anêndi sôha (or maipa sôha)	'hands-half offspring/addition four'
10	nômusu	'ten'
20	asamô-ni	'whole-one' (samô 'whole', ànì 'one')
60	asamô sidi	'whole three'

Names

Like most of the coastal languages around the Huon Gulf, Labu has a system of birth-order names.

Birth order	Sons (ai)	Daughters (ahêna)
1	aso	amê
2	amoa	hiya
3	aŋgi	aya
4	aŋgu	êta
5	ôlôndi	hênamu
6	?	asô`lô`/amênamu
7	asô`lô`	asôlô
8	asôlô	?
9	paloa	?