Central Solomon languages
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Central Solomons | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: |
Solomon Islands |
| Linguistic classification: | a primary family of Papuan languages |
| Subdivisions: |
Bilua
Touo
Lavukaleve
Savosavo
|
| Ethnologue code: | 17-2688 |
 Language families of the Solomon Islands.
Red: North Bougainville. Blue: South Bougainville. Green: Central Solomons. Grey: Austronesian. Orange: Yele (out of area) |
|
The Central Solomon languages are four distantly but demonstrably related languages of the Solomon Islands, identified as a family by Wilhelm Schmidt in 1908. They were classified as East Papuan languages by Wurm, but this does not now seem tenable, and was abandoned in Ethnologue (2009).
The four languages are,
- Bilua of Vella Lavella and Ghizo Islands,
- Touo (also known as Baniata) of Rendova Island,
- Lavukaleve of the Russell Islands, and
- Savosavo of Savo Island.
Pronouns [edit]
Ross (2005) reconstructs pronouns for proto-Central Solomons as follows,
-
I *ŋai, *a s/he & I *e-le, *-ge exclusive we *a, *e thou & I *mai-le ?, *-be inclusive we *mai ?, *-me thou *ŋo, *-ŋa you two *-bele you *me, *-me she *ko, *-ma they two (F) *-lo they *-ma he *vo, *lo, *-va, *-la they two (M) *-la
See also [edit]
References [edit]
- Structural Phylogenetics and the Reconstruction of Ancient Language History. Michael Dunn, Angela Terrill, Ger Reesink, Robert A. Foley, Stephen C. Levinson. Science magazine, 23 Sept. 2005, vol. 309, p 2072.
- Malcom Ross (2005). "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages." In: Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Robin Hide and Jack Golson, eds, Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples, 15-66. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
