Siar, also known as Lak, Lamassa, or Likkilikki, is an Austronesian language spoken in New Ireland Province in the southern island point of Papua New Guinea. Lak is in the Patpatar-Tolai sub-group, which then falls under the New Ireland-Tolai group in the Western Oceanic language, a sub-group within the Austronesian family. The Siar people keep themselves sustained and nourished by fishing and gardening. The native people call their language , which means 'our language'.
Phonology Siar-Lak has fifteen consonants and seven vowels.
+Consonant phonemesBilabialDental-AlveolarPalatalVelarNasalPlosiveFricativeLateralTrillGlide
+Vowel phonemesFrontCentralBackHighMid-highMidLow
The vowel can be thought to be pronounced in between the high vowel and the mid vowel , as well as being in between the high vowel and the mid vowel , according to native speakers.
Stress and phonotactics Stress is placed on the last syllable in each word. Examples of words broken down into syllables and translated include:
Siar-LakEnglish'sneeze''mountain peak''praise''young woman'
Syllable structures Siar-Lak contains four different types of syllable patterns in its vocabulary: V (vowel), VC (vowel-consonant), CV (consonant-vowel), and CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant). Some examples include: Siar LakEnglishVu'you''to plant''to fill'VC'article''mountain''to live'CV'now''morning''my nose''tomorrow'CVC'puddle''to dance''great''to crawl'
Orthography Siar-Lak is written in the Latin script. Most letters correspond directly to a single phoneme and vice versa. However, the consonant phoneme is spelled ⟨f⟩ at the start of a word, ⟨h⟩ at the end of a syllable, and not spelled at all when it is not pronounced. When a word-final needs to be distinguished from , it is spelled ⟨ii⟩. /e̝/ and /o̝/ are spelled ⟨é⟩ and ⟨ó⟩ respectively. /w/ and /j/ are spelled ⟨u⟩ and ⟨i⟩ in syllable codas.
Numerical system +Numbers 1–10SiarEnglishOne TwoThreeFourFiveSixSevenEight Nine or Ten
+Numbers 10–100Siar EnglishTenTwentyThirtyFortyFiftySixtySeventyEightyNinetyOne hundred
Pronouns +Independent pronouns Singular Dual Trial/Paucal Plural 1st person exclusive inclusive 2nd person 3rd person Personal Impersonal Inanimate, mass
Example sentence:
Verb phrases
Two types of verb phrases include intransitive and transitive verbs. An intransitive verb is used when there is no direct object, while a transitive verb is used when there is a direct object action taking place. An intransitive verb for 'eat' would be , while a transitive verb for 'eat' would be .
References
Further reading