| Santa Cruz | |
| States: | Solomon Islands |
| Region: | Santa Cruz Islands, Eastern Solomons. |
| Coordinates: | -10.6667°N 215°W |
| Speakers: | 5,900 |
| Date: | 1999 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | Austronesian |
| Fam3: | Oceanic |
| Fam4: | Temotu ? |
| Fam5: | Reefs – Santa Cruz |
| Lc1: | ntu |
| Ld1: | Natügu |
| Lc2: | nlz |
| Ld2: | Nalögo |
| Lc3: | npx |
| Ld3: | Noipx |
| Glotto: | natu1250 |
| Glottorefname: | Natugu–Nalogo |
The Santa Cruz language, locally known as Natqgu (new orthography) or Natügu (old orthography), is the main language spoken on the island of Nendö or 'Santa Cruz', in the Solomon Islands.
The name Natügu means "our language" (natü "language, word" + -gu "1st + 2nd person plural suffix").
It was widely believed until recently that Santa Cruz was a Papuan language. Like the rest of the Reefs – Santa Cruz languages, however, it has been shown to be a member of the Austronesian language family.[1]
Dialects are Bënwë (Banua), Londai, Malo, Nea, Nooli. Speakers of most dialects understand Lwowa and Mbanua well. The Nea and Nooli dialects are the most divergent, actually a separate language (Nalögo).
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | round | pal. | plain | round | pal. | plain | round | pal. | ||||
| Stop | voiceless | pronounced as /link/ | pʷ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| aspirated | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||
| voiced | pronounced as /link/ | bʷ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||
| Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | mʷ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Fricative | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||
| Close | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close-mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
| Near-open | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
| Open | pronounced as /link/ |
| Close | pronounced as /link/ | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close-mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
| Near-open | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
| Open | pronounced as /link/ |
The Santa Cruz language has two orthographies. The old orthography uses diacritics to mark vowel quality and nasalization while the new orthography uses no diacritics. The new orthography was developed in 1994, motivated by concerns about the difficulty of reading and typesetting the old orthography.
| Grapheme | Phoneme | |
|---|---|---|
| b | pronounced as //b// | |
| d | pronounced as //d// | |
| g | pronounced as //ɡ// | |
| h | — | |
| j | pronounced as //dʒ// | |
| k | pronounced as //k// | |
| l | pronounced as //l// | |
| m | pronounced as //m// | |
| n | pronounced as //n// | |
| p | pronounced as //p// | |
| s | pronounced as //s// | |
| t | pronounced as //t// | |
| v | pronounced as //β// | |
| w | pronounced as //w// | |
| y | pronounced as //j// |
| Grapheme (old) | Grapheme (new) | Phoneme | |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | a | pronounced as //a// | |
| e | e | pronounced as //e// | |
| i | i | pronounced as //i// | |
| o | o | pronounced as //o// | |
| u | u | pronounced as //u// | |
| â | c | pronounced as //ɔ// | |
| ü | q | pronounced as //ʉ// | |
| ö | r | pronounced as //ɵ// | |
| ä | x | pronounced as //æ// | |
| ë | z | pronounced as //ə// |
In the old orthography, nasal vowels are represented with a tilde over the vowel letter. In the new orthography, nasal vowels are represented with a straight apostrophe after the vowel letter.