Mekeo is a language spoken in Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

 and had 19,000 speakers in 2003. It is an Oceanic language of the Papuan Tip Linkage

Papuan Tip languages

-Languages:A 2008 analysis of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database fully supported the unity of the Papuan Tip languages.The analysis included the Central Papuan Tip languages Magori, Motu, and Mekeo; Kilivila; and several "Nuclear Papuan Tip" languages. Neither traditional Nuclear Papuan Tip...

. The two major villages that the language is spoken in are located in the Central Province

Central Province (Papua New Guinea)

Central Province is a province in Papua New Guinea located on the southern coast of the country. It has a population of 183,983 people and is in size. The seat of government of Central Province, which is located within the National Capital District outside the province, is the Port Moresby suburb...

 of Papua New Guinea. These are named Ongofoina and Inauaisa. The language is also broken up into four dialect

Dialect

The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...

s: East Mekeo; North West Mekeo; West Mekeo and North Mekeo. The standard dialect is East Mekeo. This main dialect is addressed throughout the article.

Phonology

Mekeo employs a relatively simple system of phonology which consists of 10 consonants and 5 vowels. The following tables identify both the consonants and vowels present in Mekeo.

Consonants

	Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...	Linguolabial Linguolabial consonant Linguolabials or apicolabials are consonants articulated by placing the tongue tip or blade against the upper lip, which is drawn downward to meet the tongue. They represent one extreme of a coronal articulatory continuum which extends from linguolabial to subapical palatal places of articulation...	Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....	Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
Plosive	p		t	k	Ɂ
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...	m	n		ŋ
Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...		f	s
Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth....			l

Note that the table above displays the range of consonants used in East Mekeo which is classified as the standard dialect. North West Mekeo, West Mekeo and North Mekeo each have slightly different consonants included in their dialects.

Vowels

Mekeo has five vowels, shown on the table below:

	Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... , Unrounded Roundedness In phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. That is, it is vocalic labialization. When pronouncing a rounded vowel, the lips form a circular opening, while unrounded vowels are pronounced with the lips relaxed...	Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... , Unrounded	Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... , Rounded
Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...	i		u
Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...	e		o
Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...		a

Pronoun and Person Markers

In Mekeo, personal pronouns primarily refer to humans, however the third person

Grammatical person

Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...

 forms can also be used for animals and other objects as well. Mekeo uses a range of different pronouns for different situations. The following table shows all the main personal pronouns for East Mekeo. This includes unmarked

Markedness

Markedness is a specific kind of asymmetry relationship between elements of linguistic or conceptual structure. In a marked-unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one...

, emphatic and reflexive

Reflexive pronoun

A reflexive pronoun is a pronoun that is preceded by the noun, adjective, adverb or pronoun to which it refers within the same clause. In generative grammar, a reflexive pronoun is an anaphor that must be bound by its antecedent...

 personal pronouns. Note, that the emphatic pronouns are not common in East Mekeo as they compete with another more common topicaliser, au-ŋa. For example, the preferred form for the first person singular would be lau- au-ŋa.
In the following table, 1, 2 and 3 indicate the person, SG and PL indicate whether the example is singular or plural

Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....

 and I and E stand for inclusive and exclusive

Clusivity

In linguistics, clusivity is a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called inclusive "we" and exclusive "we"...

.

	Unmarked	Emphatic	Reflexive
1SG	lau	lau-ŋa	Ɂifo-u
2SG	oi	oi-ŋa	Ɂifo-mu/Ɂifō
3SG	isa	isa-ŋa	Ɂifo-ŋa/Ɂifo-ŋa-mo
1PL.I	iɁa/isa	iɁ-ŋa/isa-ŋa	Ɂifo-Ɂa
1PL.E	lai	lai-ŋa	Ɂifo-mai
2PL	oi	oi-ŋa	Ɂifo-mi
3PL	isa	isa-ŋa	Ɂifo-i/Ɂifo-Ɂi

Examples:
The following examples demonstrate the use of some of the above personal pronouns in context.

E-Ɂifo

3SG-self

S/he is one of a kind.

Maa-mu	umu	koà	lopia-ŋa
Eye-2SG	charcoal	likeness	beautiful
"Your eyes are beautiful, like charcoal."

Oi,	nao	koa,	ioi-mu
2SG	European	likeness	same-2SG
"You are like a European."

ia	'e-lao	afu	ioi-na	e-lao
elsewhere	3SG-go	place	different-3SG	3SG-go
"He has gone elsewhere."