ʼAuhelawa language

ʼAuhelawa
Region	Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea
Native speakers	1,200
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Central-Eastern Eastern Oceanic Western Papuan Tip Nuclear Suauic ʼAuhelawa
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-2	map
ISO 639-3	kud

ʼAuhelawa is an Austronesian language spoken by about 1,200 people (as of 1998) in Nuakata Island and the southeastern tip of Normanby Island in Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea.

ʼAuhelawa Sampler

A: Auge, yauwedo. Haidova u lalau? (My friend, hello. Where are you going?)

B: Ya lalau oyai. Yagu oya vauvauna ya tudai. Owa haidova u lau? (I am going to the garden. I dig my new garden. Where did you go?)

A: Ya dobi gogowai yada bada ehebo ya ita. Teina gona sabate mata yana vada vauvauna ya abi. (I went down to the village to see one of our uncles. Next week I will build his new house.)

B: Yau dova nuwanuwagu yada bada ya hagui. Ebe u dobi u vada abi, u lauma u vaigau ta dobi ta paihowa. (I also want to help our uncle. When you go down to housebuild, you come and get me and we go down and work.)

A: Ausala. Mata ta itago. (Good. We will see you.)

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Back
High	i	u
Mid	ɛ	ɔ
Low	a

Consonants

		Bilabial		Alveolar	Palatal		Velar		Glottal
		Plain	Labialized		Plain	Labialized	Plain	Labialized	Plain	Labialized
Stop	Voiceless	p	pʷ	t			(k)		ʔ	ʔʷ
	Voiced	b	bʷ	d			ɡ	ɡʷ
Nasal		m	mʷ	n
Fricative	Voiceless			s					h
	Voiced		β
Approximant					j	ɥ
Lateral approximant				l

/k/ occurs only in loanwords.

Writing system

ʼAuhelawa is written in the Latin alphabet. About 85% of the population is literate.

A a	B b	Bw bw	D d	E e	G g	Gw gw	H h	I i	K k	L l	M m	Mw mw
/a/	/b/	/bʷ/	/d/	/ɛ/	/ɡ/	/ɡʷ/	/h/	/i/	/k/	/l/	/m/	/mʷ/
N n	O o	P p	Pw pw	S s	T t	U u	V v	W w	Y y	ʼ	ʼW ʼw
/n/	/ɔ/	/p/	/pʷ/	/s/	/t/	/u/	/β/	/ɥ/	/j/	/ʔ/	/ʔʷ/

External links

• Ethnologue report for language code:kud