Nii is a Trans–New Guinea language of the Chimbu–Wahgi branch spoken in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.
Nii has an unusual number of lateral consonants: a typical alveolar flap, , plus both dental and velar lateral fricatives, and , which are voiced between vowels and do not occur in initial position.Foley, 1986:63, The Papuan languages of New GuineaStucky, Alfred; Stucky, Dellene (1973). "Nii phonology". In Alan Healey (ed.), Studies In languages of the Ok family, 37-78. Workpapers In Papua New Guinea Languages, 2. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Phonology Note: the source used here is unreliable.
Vowels Front Central Back High ~ Near-High ~ Mid ~ Open
Consonants +Nii consonants (Stucky 1973) Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Nasal Prenasalized Oral Lateral Approximant
+Nii consonant allophones (Stucky 1973)Phonemeword-initialinter-vocalicword-finalutterance-final~~~~~~~(?)(after another word)~ (after a vowel)~~~~~***~~~~~~~ NA * NA ** NA NA ~
* is evidently before a consonant ** is before /r/; in word-final position this sequence becomes ~ . *** may have a vocoid release at the end of a syllable before a consonant. The account of the initial allophones of is confused, and some of the other positions are not completely clear.
References