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Tobati
Yotafa
Native to	Indonesia
Region	Papua
Ethnicity	Tobati
Native speakers	100 (2007)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Western Oceanic North New Guinea Sarmi – Jayapura Bay Jayapura Bay Tobati
Language codes
ISO 639-3	tti
Glottolog	toba1266
ELP	Tobati
Tobati is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Tobati, or Yotafa, is an Austronesian language spoken in Jayapura Bay in Papua province, Indonesia. It was once thought to be a Papuan language. Notably, Tobati displays a very rare object–subject–verb word order.

Phonology

1. Before a vowel realized as , otherwise nasalizes the preceding vowel.
2. Displays free variation as .

/f/ also shows allophony as . However, it does not behave as a stop (see below).

Tobati has a five-vowel system of /a e i o u/, realized as /a ɛ i ɔ ʊ/ in closed syllables.

Phonotactics

Tobati permits three consonants in the onset, and at most a single consonant or a nasal-stop cluster in the coda.

Nasal-stop clusters only permit a nasal and a stop of the same place of articulation. For the /nd/ sequence, /n/ becomes dental . Neither the bilabial, consisting of /b/ and the /f/ allophone , nor palatal nasal-stop clusters distinguish voice (i.e. they are and respectively). The /Nk/ sequence voices to .

References

1. ^ Tobati at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. ^ Crowley, Terry; Lynch, John; Ross, Malcolm (2002). The Oceanic Languages. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 186-88

• Languages of western New Guinea
• Object–subject–verb languages
• Sarmi–Jayapura languages
• Severely endangered languages