Dusner language
# Dusner language

Dusner is a language spoken in the village of Dusner in the province of West Papua, Indonesia. Dusner is highly endangered, and has been reported to have just three remaining speakers.

## Sociolinguistic situation

The language is highly endangered with only three speakers reported to be remaining. In 2011, researchers from Oxford University's Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics began a project to document the vocabulary and grammar of the language, in collaboration with UNIPA (State University of Papua) and UNCEN (Cenderawasih University, Papua). The project outputs were a vocabulary, a published grammar, and a website documenting the language.

## Phonology

The phoneme inventory of Dusner consists of five vowels and 19 consonants (five of which are only attested in loanwords from Indonesian/Papuan Malay).

Vowels :

| | front | back |
| - | - | - |
| high | i | u |
| mid | e | o |
| low | | a |

Consonants :

| | | labial | alveolar | palatal | velar | glottal |
| - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| nasal | nasal | m | n | (ɲ) | ŋ | |
| plosive/ affricate | voiceless | p | t | (t͡ʃ) | k | |
| plosive/ affricate | voiced | b | d | (d͡ʒ) | g | |
| fricative | fricative | β | s | | | (h) |
| liquid | liquid | | r (l) | | | |
| glide | glide | w | | j | | |

(Phonèmes in parenthèses in the table are only attested in loanwords from Papuan Malay)

There is no tone in the language. The phonology of the language has a high number of complex syllable onsets, some of them contravening the Sonority Sequencing Principle.

