Abau language


Abau is a Papuan language spoken in southern Sandaun Province of Papua New Guinea, primarily along the border with Indonesia.
In 2002, there were estimated to be between 4,500 and 5,000 speakers, and this number does not appear to have declined since the first accurate count in the 1970s.
Abau is reported to have whistled speech.

Phonology

Abau has the simplest phonemic inventory in the Sepik language family.
FrontBack
Close
Close-mid
Openɑ



BilabialAlveolarPalatalVelarGlottal
Nasal
Stop
Fricative
Flapɾ
Approximant


Pronouns

Pronouns are:
The dual and plural numbers only distinguish between first person and non-first person. Also, the third-person gender distinction exists only for the singular, but not the dual or plural forms.

Noun classes

Abau noun classes are:
Nouns can take on different class affixes depending on the physical characteristics being emphasized. Examples:
;su ‘coconut’
;pey ‘sugarcane’
Like most other Sepik languages, Abau overtly marks grammatical gender. The same object can be classified as either masculine or feminine, depending on the physical characteristics intended for emphasis. Example:
;youk ‘paddle’