their sounds do not change to . Maututu Maututu's phonemic inventory shares a strong resemblance with Bileki's. Vocabulary Speakers exposed to English borrow English lexical items, as well as mix in words from Pidgin into their speech. The practice is frowned upon, despite being widely practiced. Religion plays a part in the vocabulary used in the Nakanai-speaking regions. About 61.74% of speakers are Catholic, while the rest are Methodists of the United Church. The Catholic areas keep older Nakanai words that were replaced in other parts. Methodist areas borrow words from the Kuanuan language. There are distinct kinship terms and their use depends on whether the person is being referred to or being addressed. Nakanai has, over time, experienced lexical innovation. One driving force behind lexical innovation in the language is to be able to "discuss matters without outsiders understanding key words." An example: Lexical innovation also comes in the form of borrowing terms from the surrounding languages, mainly Tolai, Pidgin and English, to cover foreign objects. An example: Before the borrowing of lexical terms, they would make do with creative reactions to new objects that arrived to New Britain from foreign sources. Along with adding new terms, they have also expanded existing ones to match new experiences introduced by foreigners. There are also unnecessary borrowings in the forms of functional term and calques: Ubae Ubae, compared to its neighbor Vele, has numerous lexical differences from Bileki, taking from other Eastern Nakanai dialects. For example, consider the words : this means 'dog'. , or 'dog', is found in the Eastern Nakanai dialects; however, Ubae still uses the Bileki article instead of , which is found in other Eastern Nakanai dialects. Lexicon Notes References Meso-Melanesian languages Languages of West New Britain Province