South Vanuatu languages explained

South Vanuatu
Region:	Southern Vanuatu
Familycolor:	Austronesian
Fam3:	Oceanic
Fam4:	Southern Oceanic
Protoname:	Proto-South Vanuatu
Glotto:	sout2868
Glottorefname:	Southern Vanuatu

The nine South Vanuatu languages form a family of the Southern Oceanic languages,^[1] spoken in Tafea Province (Tanna, Aneityum, Futuna, Erromango, and Aniwa) of Vanuatu.

Languages

• Erromango family
  • Southern: Sie, Sorung†
  • Northern: Ifo (Utaha)†, Ura
    (See Erromanga language#Linguistic situation for a description)
• Tanna family
  • Southern: Kwamera (South Tanna), Southwest Tanna
  • Northern: Lenakel (West Tanna), Whitesands (Weasisi, East Tanna), North Tanna
• Aneityum
  • Aneityum (Anejom̃)

François (2015)

François (2015:18–21) lists the following names and locations for the 9 South Vanuatu languages.

No.	Language	Other names	Speakers		Region
128			1900		Erromango
129			6		Erromango
130			0		Erromango
131			5000		Tanna
132			11500		Tanna
133			5000		Tanna
134			7500		Tanna
135			3500		Tanna
137			900		Aneityum

Proto-South Vanuatu

Proto-South Vanuatu
Also Known As:	PSV
Familycolor:	Austronesian
Ancestor:	Proto-Austronesian
Ancestor2:	Proto-Malayo-Polynesian
Ancestor3:	Proto-Oceanic
Target:	South Vanuatu languages

Proto-South Vanuatu was reconstructed by John Lynch in 2001.

The language, compared to Proto-Oceanic, went through a series of vowel reductions, leading to the creation of a new vowel written as *ə, such as in *na-waiR "fresh water" resulting in Proto-South Vanuatu *nə-wai of the same meaning.

However, it also preserves some, but not all final consonants. For example, *tanum "to plant, bury" is reflected in Proto-South Vanuatu as *(a)-tenum "to bury", but *taŋis "to cry" is instead reflected as *(a)-taŋi.

Vowels

The vowels of Proto-South Vanuatu, according to Lynch, are:

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	pronounced as / i /		pronounced as / u /
Close-mid	pronounced as / e /	pronounced as / ə /	pronounced as / o /
Open		pronounced as / a /

Consonants

The consonants of Proto-South Vanuatu, according to Lynch, are:

!Labiovelar!Bilabial!Alveolar!Palatal!Velar!Uvular

Stop	voiced	pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
	voiceless	pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Nasal		pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
Fricative		pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/, *pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Approximant		pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/, *pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/

References

• .
• Lynch, John. 2001. The linguistic history of southern Vanuatu. (Pacific Linguistics, 509.) Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

Notes and References

1. Book: Lynch . John . John Lynch (linguist) . Ross . Malcolm . Malcolm Ross (linguist) . Crowley . Terry . Terry Crowley (linguist) . 2002 . The Oceanic languages . Richmond, Surrey . Curzon . 978-0-7007-1128-4 . 48929366 .