Western Dani language

Western Dani, or Lani, is the most populous Papuan language in Indonesian New Guinea. It is spoken by the Lani people in the province of Highland Papua. The Baliem Valley tribes are called Oeringoep and Timorini in literature from the 1920s, but those names are no longer used.

Western Dani
Lani
Region	Highland Papua, Indonesia
Ethnicity	Lani
Native speakers	(180,000 cited 1993)^[1]
Language family	Trans–New Guinea West Trans–New Guinea Irian Highlands ? Dani languages Dani proper Western Dani
Language codes
ISO 639-3	dnw
Glottolog	west2594
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Phonology

The phonology of the Western Dani language:^[2]

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Velar		Glottal
				plain	lab.
Nasal		m	n
Plosive	voiceless	p (pʰ)	t (tʰ)	k (kʰ)	kʷ (kʷʰ)	ʔ
	prenasal	ᵐb	ⁿd	ᵑɡ	ᵑɡʷ
Fricative		β		ɣ	ɣʷ
Flap			ɾ
Lateral			l
Approximant		w	ɹ

At the beginning of words, stops sound aspirated. An intervocalic /ɣ/ is pronounced as [ʁ], and a /ɹ/ before a high vowel becomes a fricative [z].

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i iː		u uː
Mid	e eː		ɒ ɒː
Low		ɐ ɐː

Vowels /i, u, ɒ/ have allophones, [ɪ, ʊ, ɔ].

References

1. Western Dani at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Barclay, Peter (2008). A Grammar of Western Dani.