// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did Bwaidoka say to its rival language? You're just a dialect apart.

Bwaidoka
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Milne Bay Province (Goodenough Island, Fergusson Island)
Native speakers	(6,500 cited 2000)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Western Oceanic Papuan Tip Nuclear Papuan Tip North Papuan Mainland – D'Entrecasteaux Bwaidoga Bwaidoka
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bwd
Glottolog	bwai1242

Bwaidoka is an Austronesian language spoken in Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. It is a local lingua franca.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial		Dental/ Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
		plain	lab.			plain	lab.
Plosive	voiceless			t		k	kʷ
	voiced	b	bʷ			ɡ
Fricative	voiceless	f	fʷ	s
	voiced	v
Nasal		m	mʷ	n
Lateral				l
Approximant					j	w

• /t/ can be pronounced as alveolar [t], or dental [t̪] when preceding central or back vowels.
• /ɡ/ can be pronounced as a voiced plosive [ɡ], or as a fricative [ɣ] on an unstressed syllable.
• /j/ can be pronounced as either [j] or as [ð] in free variation.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

• Vowel sounds /i, o, u/ do not occur following labialized consonants.
• /e/ may fluctuate freely from [e] to [ə] in syllable-final, and with [ɛ] as the first vowel sound on stressed syllables.
• /a/ may fluctuate freely from [a] to [ə] on unstressed syllables and as the second vowel sound on stressed syllables.
• /o/ may fluctuate freely from [o] to [ɔ] on unstressed syllables and as the second vowel sound on stressed syllables.