Kivatu
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| Kivatu | |
|---|---|
| Kiuatou | |
| vatu k’vatu | |
| Pronunciation | [w̥atu kʼw̥atu] |
| Created by | Jukethatbox |
| Date | 2024 |
| Native to | Kivatu Archipelago |
| Ethnicity | K’wa, Kokosi and Kikiñ peoples |
| Native speakers | ~70,000 (2024) ~31,850 K’wa ~21,980 Kokosi ~15,890 Kikiñ ~280 other |
language isolate
| |
Kivatu(vatu k’vatu, pronounced: [w̥atu kʼw̥atu]), also called Kiuatou, is a language isolate spoken natively in the Kivatu Archipelago by the K’wa, Kokosi and Kikiñ people in order of population. There are a total of about 70,000 native speakers of Kivatu, with 45.5% being ethnically K’wa, 31.4% being Kokosi, 22.7% being Kikiñ and the remaining 0.4% being other unspecified ethnicities.
Phonology
Consonants
| Bilabial | Coronal | Velar | Palatal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | pulmonic | p b | t d | k g | |
| ejective | pʼ bʼ | tʼ dʼ | kʼ | ||
| Nasal | m̥ m | n̥ n | (ŋ) | ɲ | |
| Trill | r | ||||
| Fricative | pulmonic | ɸ~f | s z | ç | |
| palatalised | sʲ zʲ | ||||
| (Lateral) Approximant | l | w̥ w | j̥ j | ||
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ʉ~u | |
| Close-mid | e | o~o̞ | |
| Open | a | ɑ | |
Phonotactics
All CV and V syllables are possible in Kivatu, though VC syllables do appear sometimes in some loanwords, like b’ataŋ, "baseball bat", from Indonesian batang, or robok, "robot", from English robot.