Sanio language

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Sanio
Nativename	Hiowe
States	Papua New Guinea
Region	East Sepik Province
Speakers	1,300
Date	2000 census
Ref	e25
Familycolor	Papuan
Fam 1	Sepik
Fam 2	Sepik Hill
Dia 1	Saniyo
Dia 2	Hiyowe
Iso 3	sny
Glotto	sani1270
Glottorefname	Saniyo-Hiyewe

Sanio, or more precisely Saniyo-Hiyewe, is a Sepik language of Tunap/Hunstein Rural LLG in East Sepik Province, northern Papua New Guinea. It is also spoken in Telefomin Rural LLG, Sandaun Province.^[1]

Dialects

Dialects are:^[1]^[2]

Hiyowe dialect, spoken in Maposi village (4.547475°S 142.220638°E) of Tunap-Hunstein Rural LLG
Saniyo dialect, spoken in Hanasi (4.523215°S 142.375861°E), Malapute’e (4.58544°S 142.33631°E), Pukapuki, Salunapi (4.551342°S 142.343271°E), and Sio (4.450431°S 142.316392°E) villages of Tunap-Hunstein Rural LLG

Phonology

Consonants^[3]
	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p	t		k	ʔ
Fricative	ɸ	s			h
Nasal	m	n
Approximant	w	r	j

/r/ has the allophone [l] word-initially, which is written with the separate character .
/ʔ/ only appears intervocalically.

Vowels^[3]
	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid-high	e		o
Mid-low	ɛ
Low		a

/ɛ/ is pronounced [ei] before /j/. In this case it is written as .

Additionally, the following diphthongs can be found: /ai/, /au/, /ou/.

References

^ e25
^ United Nations in Papua New Guinea (2018). "Papua New Guinea Village Coordinates Lookup". Humanitarian Data Exchange. 1.31.9.
^ Lewis, Ron (2002). Saniyo Hiyewe Organised Phonology Data. SIL International.

Connections

Graph view