Lihir language

{{Short description|Oceanic language spoken in Papua New Guinea}}

{{Infobox language

|name=Lihir

|nativename={{lang|lih|Lir}}

|region=Lihir Island, off New Ireland

|speakers={{sigfig|12600|2}}

|date=2000 census

|ref=e18

|familycolor=Austronesian

|fam2=Malayo-Polynesian

|fam3=Oceanic

|fam4=Western

|fam5=Meso-Melanesian

|fam6=(New Ireland)

|fam7=Tabar

|iso3=lih

|glotto=lihi1237

|glottorefname=Lihir

}}

The Lihir language ({{lang|lih|Lir}}) is an Austronesian language spoken in the Lihir island group, in New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea. It is notable for having five levels of grammatical number: singular, dual, trial, paucal and plural.{{cite book |title=Number |series=Cambridge textbooks in linguistics |last=Corbett |first=Greville G. |year=2000 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn= 9780521649704 |page=25 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7jc-pgAFcE0C&q=lihir+language&pg=PA25 |access-date=2010-05-26}} It is questionable whether the trial is indeed trial or whether it is paucal, leaving there being a paucal and a greater paucal. Either way, this is the highest number of levels of grammatical number in any language. This distinction appears in both independent pronouns and possessor suffixes. There is some variation in pronunciation and orthography between the main island Niolam, and some of the smaller islands in the group.