Grand Valley Dani language
| Grand Valley Dani | |
|---|---|
| Region | Highlands of Irian Jaya |
| Ethnicity | Dani |
Native speakers | unknown (90,000 cited 1990–1996)[1] |
|
Trans–New Guinea
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
Variously: dni – Lower dnt – Mid dna – Upper hap – Hupla |
| Glottolog |
gran1246[2] |
Grand Valley Dani, or simply Dani,[3] is one of the most populous Papuan languages in Indonesian New Guinea. The Dani people live in the Baliem Valley of the Western Highlands.
Dialectical differentiation is great enough that Ethnologue assigns separate codes to three varieties:
- Lower
- Mid or Central, also known as Tulem
- Upper
Lower Grand Valley Dani contains subdialects Lower Grand Valley Hitigima (Dani-Kurima, Kurima), Upper Bele, Lower Bele, Lower Kimbin (Kibin), and Upper Pyramid. Hupla, traditionally considered a separate language, is closer to Lower Grand Valley than the varieties of Grand Valley Dani are to each other.
The Dani language differentiates only two basic colours, mili for cool/dark shades such as blue, green, and black, and mola for warm/light colours such as red, yellow, and white. This trait makes it an interesting field of research for language psychologists, such as Eleanor Rosch, investigating the Whorf hypothesis.
Notes
- ↑ Lower at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Mid at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Upper at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Hupla at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) - ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Grand Valley Dani". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- ↑ Compare Lani
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