Golin language
Chimbu language spoken in Papua New Guinea
Golin (also Gollum, Gumine) is a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea.
01Phonology
Vowels
Diphthongs that occur are /ɑi ɑu ɔi ui/. The consonants /l n/ can also be syllabic.
Consonant
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | lab. | plain | Late. | plain | lab. | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ||||||
| Stop | voiceless /voiced |
p b |
(bʷ) |
t d |
k ɡ |
(gʷ) | ||
| Fricative | s~ʃ | ɬ~ l |
||||||
| Approximant | j | w | ||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||
/bʷ ɡʷ/ are treated as single consonants by Bunn & Bunn (1970), but as combinations of /b/ + /w/, /ɡ/ + /w/ by Evans et al. (2005).
Two consonants appear to allow free variation in their realisations: [s] varies with [ʃ], and [l] with [ɬ].
/n/ assimilates to [ŋ] before /k/ and /ɡ/.
Tone
Golin is a tonal language, distinguishing high ([˧˥]), mid ([˨˧]), and low ([˨˩]) tone. The high tone is marked by an acute accent and the low tone by a grave accent, while the mid tone is left unmarked. Examples:
- High: mú [mu˧˥] 'type of snake'; wí [wi˧˥] 'scream (man)'
- Mid: mu [mu˨˧] 'type of bamboo'; wi [wi˨˧] 'coming from the same ethnic group'
- Low: mù [mu˨˩] 'sound of river'; wì [wi˨˩] 'cut (verb)'
02Pronouns
Golin is notable for having a small pronominal paradigm. There are two basic pronouns:
- ná first person
- í second person
There is no number distinction and no true third person pronoun. Third person pronouns in Golin are in fact compounds derived from 'man' plus inín 'self':
- yalíni 'he' < yál 'man' + inín 'self'
- abalíni 'she' < abál 'woman' + inín 'self'
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Golin language”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
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