Oksapmin language

Oksapmin
nuxule meŋ 'our language'
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Telefomin District, Sandaun
Native speakers	unknown (8,000 cited 1991)
Language family	Trans–New Guinea Central & South New Guinea ? Ok–Oksapmin Oksapmin
Dialects	Upper Oksapmin Lower Oksapmin
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	opm
Glottolog	oksa1245

Oksapmin is a Trans–New Guinea language spoken in Telefomin District, Sandaun, Papua New Guinea. It has been influenced by the Ok languages (indeed, the name "Oksapmin" is from an Ok language), and the similarities with those languages were attributed to borrowing in the classifications of both Stephen Wurm (1975) and Malcolm Ross (2005), where Oksapmin was placed as an independent branch of Trans–New Guinea. However, Loughnane (2009) and Loughnane and Fedden (2011) demonstrated that that it is related to the Ok languages, though they share innovative features not found in Oksapmin.

The two principal dialects are distinct enough to cause some problems with mutually intelligibility.

Oksapmin has dyadic kinship terms and a body-part counting system that goes up to 27.

Phonology

Vowels

There are seven monophthongs, /i e ə a o ʉ u/, and one diphthong, /ai/.

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
					Unrounded	Rounded
Stop	Voiceless	p	t		k	kʷ
	Voiced	b	d		ɡ	ɡʷ
Fricative			s		x	xʷ
Nasal		m	n		ŋ	ŋʷ
Flap			ɾ
Approximant				j		w

Tone

Oksapmin contrasts two tones: high and low.