Central Solomon languages explained

Central Solomons
Region:Solomon Islands
Acceptance:tentative
Familycolor:Papuan
Family:One of the world's primary language families
Glotto:none
Protoname:Proto-Central Solomons
Child1:Bilua
Child2:Touo
Child3:Lavukaleve
Child4:Savosavo
Map:Central Solomons languages.png
Mapcaption:Language families of the Solomon Islands.

The Central Solomon languages are the four Papuan languages spoken in the state of Solomon Islands.

The four languages are, listed from northwest to southeast,

Classification

The four Central Solomon languages were identified as a family by Wilhelm Schmidt in 1908. The languages are at best distantly related, and evidence for their relationship is meager. Dunn and Terrill (2012) argue that the lexical evidence vanishes when Oceanic loanwords are excluded.[1] Ross (2005) and Pedrós (2015), however, accept a connection, based on similarities among pronouns and other grammatical forms.

Pedrós (2015) suggests, tentatively, that the branching of the family is as follows.

Central Solomons

Savosavo and Bilua, despite being the most distant languages geographically, both split more recently than Lavukaleve and Touo according to Pedrós.

Palmer (2018) regards the evidence for Central Solomons as tentative but promising.[2]

An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013)[3] grouped Touo, Savosavo, and Bilua together. Lavukaleve was not included. However, since the analysis was automatically generated, the grouping could be either due to mutual lexical borrowing or genetic inheritance.

Pronoun reconstructions

Pedrós (2015) argues for the existence of the family through comparison of pronouns and other gender, person and number morphemes and based on the existence of a common syncretism between 2nd person nonsingular and inclusive. He performs an internal reconstruction for the pronominal morphemes of each language and then proposes a reconstruction of some of the pronouns of the claimed family. The reconstructions are the following:

1 singular 2 singular inclusive/
2 non-singular
1 exclusive
Pre-Savosavo
  • a-ɲi
  • no
  • me
a-
Pre-Touo noe
  • me
e̤-
Pre-Lavukaleve
  • ŋai
  • ŋo
  • me
e
Pre-Bilua
  • ani/*aŋai
  • ŋo
me e-
Proto-Central Solomons
  • ani/*aŋai
  • ŋo
  • me
  • e

Numerals

Central Solomon numerals from Pedrós (2015):

numeral Bilua
1ˈela, ˈpade / pa aɺo / azo ˈtelakom, ˈtelako ˈomadeu, ˈmadeu
2ˈedo e̤ɺi ˈlelemal, ˈlelaol, ˈlelaɰel, ˈlemal ˈomuga, ˈmuga
3iˈɰiβa / iˈɰia hie ˈeŋa ˈzouke, ke
4ˈaɰaβa a̤vo nun ˈariku
5ˈara sodu ˈsie ˈsike, ke

As the comparisons indicate, lexical evidence for the relatedness of the four languages is limited.

Vocabulary comparison

The following basic vocabulary words are from Tryon & Hackman (1982),[4] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database.[5] The Savosavo data is from Claudia Wegener's field notes.[6]

The words cited constitute translation equivalents, with no claim as to whether they are cognate or not. If one sets apart the obvious loanwords from Oceanic languages (e.g. batu, vatu for “head”, susu for “breast”), the number of potential cognates across these four varieties is evidently very low.

gloss Savosavo
headvatu lezu batu
hairmemea zufu tou luta; sivuɰa
earhovul ōŋgoto taliŋa tagalu
eyelemi mberɔ vilu nito
nosesisi emɔ ŋgame ɲoko
toothneo nāne taka nale
tonguelet ānl leño lapi
legtau furime ɔe kiti
lousekea; lai lisa; vutu sipi; tiŋgau dole
dogmitakeu sie siele misu
birdmalaɣul mānozo mbiaŋambiaŋa kosu
eggkeruv āndena tɔruru kolei; si
bloodravu vo ndara ɰabu
bonesosokio minu piza tovolo
skinkeut zuɔna tupu korakora
breastɔfu susu susu susu
manali finɔzɔ mamba tada
womanaira ŋgohe reko adaki
skytotoās uzia au oka
moonkua īndi kamboso kuɰe
waterlafi fiɔ nĵu piva
firelake hirɔ uza keda
stonembeko; veko hɛŋga lando kato
road, pathlake e keve keva
namelaŋi nini ŋi nini
eateu; eui; oune azafe vuato l-ou; samu
onedom; tetelom āroŋo; thufi mandeu ela; pade
twolelal; lemal ēri omuŋga edo

Syntax

All Central Solomon languages have SOV word order except for Bilua, which has SVO word order due to Oceanic influence.[7]

Links and references

See also

Bibliography

External links

Notes and References

  1. Michael Dunn & Angela Terrill (2012) Assessing the lexical evidence for a Central Solomons Papuan family using the Oswalt Monte Carlo test. Diachronica 29:1–27.
  2. Book: Palmer, Bill . Palmer . Bill . 2018 . The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide . Language families of the New Guinea Area . The World of Linguistics . 4 . Berlin . De Gruyter Mouton . 1–20 . 978-3-11-028642-7.
  3. Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013. ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013).
  4. Tryon, D.T. and Hackman, B.D. Solomon Islands languages: An internal classification. C-72, viii + 493 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1982.
  5. Web site: Central Solomons . TransNewGuinea.org - database of the languages of New Guinea . Greenhill . Simon . 2016. 2020-11-05.
  6. Web site: Savosavo . TransNewGuinea.org - database of the languages of New Guinea . Greenhill . Simon . 2016. 2020-11-05.
  7. Book: Stebbins . Tonya . Evans . Bethwyn . Terrill . Angela . Palmer . Bill . 2018 . The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide . The Papuan languages of Island Melanesia . The World of Linguistics . 4 . Berlin . De Gruyter Mouton . 775–894 . 978-3-11-028642-7.