Central Asmat language

Central Asmat is a Papuan language of West New Guinea, spoken by the Asmat people.

Central Asmat
Native to	Indonesia
Region	Asmat Regency, South Papua
Ethnicity	Asmat people
Native speakers	(7,000 cited 1972) 2,000 Yaosakor (1991), perhaps counted above
Language family	Trans–New Guinea Asmat–Kamoro Asmat Central Asmat
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cns – inclusive code Individual code: asy – Yaosakor Asmat
Glottolog	cent2247

Dialects

Central Asmat has a number of dialects, which are:

• Keenok
• Sokoni
• Keenakap
• Kawenak (subdialects: Simai, Kainak, Mismam, Mecemup)

Yaosakor Asmat, assigned its own ISO code, is a variety of Central Asmat, not a distinct language.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	m	n
Plosive	p	t	tʃ	k
Fricative	f	s	ʝ
Rhotic		r
Approximant	w

• /p/ can be heard as a fricative [ɸ] when in intervocalic positions, as [pʷ] in the speech of older speakers when preceding /e/.
• /tʃ/ can be heard as a palatalized [tʲ] when in word-final positions following /i/.
• /k/ can be heard as a fricative [x] when following a vowel and preceding a consonant.
• /s/ can be heard as fricatives [θ] or [ʃ] among some older speakers.
• /r/ can be heard as a flap [ɾ] in word-medial and word-final positions.
• /ʝ/ can be heard as [dʒ] or [j] in word-initial positions.
• Nasals /m, n/ may fluctuate to voiced stops [b, d] in word-initial positions, and as prenasal stops [ᵐb, ⁿd] when in syllable-initial positions.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e	ə	o
Low		a

Phoneme	Allophones
/i/	[i], [y], [ɪ]
/e/	[e], [ɛ], [ø]
/a/	[ä], [a], [æ]
/o/	[o], [ɤ], [ɔ]
/u/	[u], [ʉ]