Gimi language

Gimi
Gimi
Labogai
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Eastern Highlands Province
Native speakers	(23,000 cited 2000)
Language family	Proto-Trans–New Guinea Trans–New Guinea Kainantu–Goroka Goroka Gimi; ; ; ;
Dialects	Gouno;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	gim
Glottolog	gimi1243

Gimi, also known as Labogai, is a Papuan language spoken in the Eastern Highlands Province in Papua New Guinea. 23,000 speakers (2000 cited) speak the Gimi language.

Phonology

Gimi has 5 vowels and 12 consonants.^[2] It has voiceless and voiced glottal consonants where related languages have /k/ and /ɡ/. The voiceless glottal is simply a glottal stop [ʔ]. The voiced consonant behaves phonologically like a glottal stop, but does not have full closure. Phonetically it is a creaky-voiced glottal approximant [˷].^[3]

/p/ occurs word initially only in loanwords.

/b/ can surface as either [b] or [β] in free variation.

/z/ becomes [s] before /ɑ/.

/t/ and /ɾ/ tend to fluctuate with one another word initially.

The syllable structure is (C)V(G), where G is either /ʔ/ or /˷/.

The final vowel of a word takes either a level or falling tone. The falling tone is written with an acute accent.

ak "seed"		ák "armband"
nimi "bird"		nimí "louse"

Gimi uses the Latin script.^[2]

Letter	Aa	Bb	Dd	Ee	Gg	Hh	Ii	Kk	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Zz
IPA	ɑ	b	d	e	˷ (ʔ)	h	i	ʔ (ʔː)	m	n	o	p	ɾ	s	t	u	z