Halia language

For the characters named Halia in Greek mythology, see Halie. For Thucydides' ancient Greek town of Halia, see Halieis.

Halia
Selau
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Buka Island, Selau Peninsula
Native speakers	25,000 (2005)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Western Meso-Melanesian Northwest Solomonic Nehan–Bougainville Buka Halia–Hakö Halia
Language codes
ISO 639-3	hla
Glottolog	hali1244

Halia is an Austronesian language of Buka Island and the Selau Peninsula of Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea.

Phonology

The phonology of the Halia language:

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k
	voiced	b			g
Affricate			ts ~ tʃ
Fricative			s			h
Lateral			l
Rhotic			r
Semivowel		w		j

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
	ɪ		ʊ
Mid	(e)		o
	ɛ		ɔ
Low		a

Diphthong vowel sounds include /ei, au, ou/.

[e] exists, but not as a monophthong.

Allophones

Phoneme	Allophones
/b/	[β]
/ɡ/	[ɣ], [χ]
/ts/	[tʃ]
/r/	[ɾ]
/a/	[æ], [ɐ], [ʌ]
/ʊ/	[ɨ]
/ei/	[e], [ɛi], [ɛ]

Literature

In the 1960s Francis Hagai produced a series of liturgies in Halia as part of his work with the Hahalis Welfare Society.

External links

• Written materials on Halia are available at Kaipuleohone under 'Selau'