Oksapmin language
Encyclopedia
Oksapmin is a Trans–New Guinea language spoken in Telefomin District
Telefomin District
Telefomin District is a district of the Sandaun Province of Papua New Guinea. Its capital is Telefomin....

, Sandaun
Sandaun
Sandaun Province, officially West Sepik Province, is the north-westernmost province of Papua New Guinea. It covers an area of 36,300 km² and has a population of 185,741 . The capital is Vanimo...

, 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...

. It has been influenced by the Ok languages
Ok languages
The Ok languages are a family of a score of clearly related Trans–New Guinea languages spoken in a contiguous area of eastern Irian Jaya and western Papua New Guinea...

 (indeed, the name "Oksapmin" is from an Ok language), and the similarities with those languages were attributed to borrowing in the classifications of both Stephen Wurm
Stephen Wurm
Stephen Adolphe Wurm was a Hungarian-born Australian linguist.- Biography :Wurm was born in Budapest, the second child to the German-speaking Adolphe Wurm and Hungarian-speaking Anna Novroczky, and was christened Istvan Adolphe Wurm...

 (1975) and Malcolm Ross
Malcolm Ross
Malcolm David Ross is a linguist and professor at the Australian National University. He has published work on Austronesian and Papuan languages, historical linguistics, and language contact.-External links:**...

 (2005), where Oksapmin was placed as an independent branch of Trans–New Guinea. However, Loughnane (2009) and Loughnane and Fedden (2011) demonstrated that that it is related to the Ok languages, though they share innovative features not found in Oksapmin.

The two principal dialects are distinct enough to cause some problems with mutually intelligibility.

Oksapmin has dyadic kinship term
Dyadic kinship term
Dyadic kinship terms are kinship terms in a few languages that express the relationship between individuals as they relate one to the other...

s.

Vowels

There are seven monophthong
Monophthong
A monophthong is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation....

s, /i e ə a o ʉ u/, and one diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...

, /ai/.

Consonants

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:...

Alveolar
Alveolar consonant
Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...

Palatal
Palatal consonant
Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...

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)....

Unrounded Rounded
Stop
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...

Voiceless p t k
Voiced b d ɡ ɡʷ
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 x
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 ŋʷ
Flap
Flap consonant
In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:...

ɾ
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...

j w
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x
OK