Big Nambas language explained

Big Nambas
Nativename:	V'ənen Taut
Pronunciation:	pronounced as /[ˈθ̼ənɛn tautʰ]/
States:	Vanuatu
Region:	Northwest Malekula
Date:	2001
Ref:	e18
Familycolor:	Austronesian
Fam2:	Malayo-Polynesian
Fam3:	Oceanic
Fam4:	Southern Oceanic
Fam5:	North-Central Vanuatu
Fam6:	Central Vanuatu
Fam7:	Malakula
Fam8:	Malakula Interior
Script:	Latin script
Iso3:	nmb
Glotto:	bign1238
Glottorefname:	Big Nambas
Notice:	IPA
Map:	Lang Status 99-NE.svg

Big Nambas (native name V'ənen Taut) is an Oceanic language spoken by about people in northwest Malekula, Vanuatu. Approximately nineteen villages in the Big Nambas region of the Malekula Interior use the language exclusively with no variation in dialect. It was studied in-depth over a period of about 10 years by missionary Greg. J. Fox, who published a grammar and dictionary in 1979. A Big Nambas translation of the Bible has been completed recently by Andrew Fox.

Phonology

The consonant phonemes of Big Nambas are as shown in the following table:

		Bilabial	Linguolabial	Alveolar	Velar
Nasal		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Plosive	voiced			pronounced as /link/
	voiceless	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Fricative	voiced	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
	voiceless			pronounced as /link/
Liquid	rhotic			pronounced as /link/
	lateral			pronounced as /link/

• pronounced as //p, t, k// are aspirated pronounced as /[pʰ, tʰ, kʰ]/ word finally. pronounced as //t̼// is not noted as behaving likewise.
• pronounced as //m, p// are rounded pronounced as /[mʷ, pʷ]/ before the front vowels pronounced as //i, e//
• The voiced fricatives pronounced as //β, ð̼, ɣ// are devoiced pronounced as /[ɸ, θ̼, x]/ word initially and finally.
• pronounced as //l// is realized as pronounced as /[ɬ]/ word finally or when adjacent to pronounced as //t//, and as pronounced as /[ɮ]/ when adjacent to pronounced as //n// word medially.

Big Nambas has a 5-vowel system with the following phonemes:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/
Mid	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Open		pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/

Big Nambas has a complex syllable structure with a large amount of consonant clusters possible. Additionally, clusters of up to four vowels are permitted (e.g. nauei "water"). Stress in Big Nambas is phonemic, but partly predictable. The consonants /t β r l n/ all exhibit phonemic gemination when two identical ones occur between syllables. Linguolabial consonants are often marked with an apostrophe in the orthography to distinguish them from their bilabial counterparts.

Grammar

Big Nambas is a synthetic, head-marking language.

Nouns

Nouns in Big Nambas are capable of phrasal expansion. There are three noun classes in Big Nambas:

1. Obligatorily possessed nouns, most commonly constituent parts of any object (body parts, tree parts, ordinals, possessive)
2. Optionally possessed nouns, with the subclasses:
   1. Nouns taking the third singular possessives nan or nen
   2. Nouns taking the prefix ar- "all"
   3. Title nouns (names and kinship terms)
3. Unpossessed nouns (personal and interrogative pronouns)

Big Nambas features a system of complex nouns, formed by derivation. Derived nouns can be of one of five types:

1. Abstract nouns, formed by suffixing -ien to verb stems (e.g. tkar "be pregnant" vs. tkar-ien "pregnancy")
2. Articled nouns, formed by prefixing na- or n- to a verb stem beginning with a vowel (i-u "it rains" vs. n-u "(the) rain")
3. Ordinal nouns, formed by prefixing the nominalizer ni- and suffixing the possessive -a (tl "three" vs. ni-tl-a "the third of")
4. Determinative nouns, formed by prefixing ter- to some adjective stems (p'arei "long" vs. ter-p'arei "the long one")
5. Reverential nouns, formed by suffixing -et to some nouns (nut "place" vs. nutet "a sacred place", cf. nap' "fire" vs. nep'et "sacred fire")

Nouns in Big Nambas may be compounded by following them with a verb stem.

Bibliography

• Book: Fox, G. J. . Big Nambas Grammar . Pacific Linguistics . 1979 . 0-85883-183-X .

External links

• V'enen Taut recordings
• Video about the language