Tobati, or Yotafa, is an Austronesian language spoken in Jayapura Bay in Papua province, Indonesia. It was once thought to be a Papuan language.[1] Notably, Tobati displays a very rare object–subject–verb word order.[2]
| Tobati | |
|---|---|
| Yotafa | |
| Native to | Indonesia |
| Region | Papua |
| Ethnicity | Tobati |
Native speakers | 100 (2007)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | tti |
| Glottolog | toba1266 |
| ELP | Tobati |
 Tobati is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
Phonology
edit| Labial | Labio- dental |
Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ[a] | |||
| Stop | voiceless | t | c | k | |||
| voiced | b | d | d͡ʒ | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | ɸ | f | s | ʃ | h[b] | |
| voiced | ɣ~ɰ | ||||||
| Approximant | w | j | |||||
| Rhotic | r | ||||||
/f/ also shows allophony as [p]. However, it does not behave as a stop (see below).
Tobati has a five-vowel system of /a e i o u/, realized as /a ɛ i ɔ ʊ/ in closed syllables.
Phonotactics
editTobati permits three consonants in the onset, and at most a single consonant or a nasal-stop cluster in the coda.
Nasal-stop clusters only permit a nasal and a stop of the same place of articulation. For the /nd/ sequence, /n/ becomes dental [n̪]. Neither the bilabial, consisting of /b/ and the /f/ allophone [p], nor palatal nasal-stop clusters distinguish voice (i.e. they are [pm~bm] and [cɲ~d͡ʒɲ] respectively). The /Nk/ sequence voices to [ŋg].[2]