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Motu

meu

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Motu (sometimes called Pure Motu or True Motu to distinguish it from Hiri Motu) is one of many Central Papuan Tip languages, and is spoken by the Motuans, native inhabitants of Papua New Guinea. It is still commonly used today in the region, particularly around the capital, Port Moresby. A simplified form of Motu developed as a trade language in the Papuan region, in the South-East of the main island of New Guinea, originally known as Police Motu, and today known as Hiri Motu. After Tok Pisin and English, Hiri Motu was at the time of independence the third most commonly spoken of the more than 800 languages of Papua New Guinea, although its use has been declining for some years, mainly in favour of Tok Pisin. Motu is classified as one of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, and bears some linguistic similarities to both the Polynesian languages and Micronesian languages. Motu is a typical Austronesian language, in that it is heavily vowel-based. Every Motu syllable ends in a vowel sound - this may be preceded by a single consonant (there are no consonant clusters). Vowel sounds may be either pure (consisting of a single basic sound) or diphthong (consisting of more than one basic sound). There are only five pure vowel sounds (approximately those of Italian); Motu diphthongs are written (and pronounced) as combinations of two pure vowels. The diphthongs oi and oe (both approximately like the diphthong in the English word boy), ai and ae (both approximately like the diphthong in the English word high) and ao and au (both approximately like the diphthong in the English word cow) are the only vowel sounds that present difficulties. There are sixteen consonants. These are b, d, g, gw, h, k, kw, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, and the velar fricative (ɣ), usually written as ḡ. The letter r is an alveolar lateral flap, or flapped r; its IPA symbol is (ɺ), and it is closer to l than the equivalent consonant in English. In practice, the letters r and l form a single phoneme to native speakers of Motu. The letter f is missing - where it occurs in loan words it is usually represented as p. Motu Braille has the usual letter assignments apart from ḡ, which is ⠿.
Source : DBpedia

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This page is providing structured data for the language Motu.
Following BCP 47 the recommended tag for this language is meu.

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