Vurës language
| Vurës | |
|---|---|
| Vureas | |
| Native to | Vanuatu |
| Region | Vanua Lava |
Native speakers | 2,000 (2012)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | msn (shared with Mwesen) |
| Glottolog | vure1239 |
| ELP | Vurës |
Vurës (Vureas, Vures) is an Oceanic language spoken in the southern area of Vanua Lava Island, in the Banks Islands of northern Vanuatu, by about 2000 speakers.[1]
Vurës shows enough similarities with the neighbouring language Mwesen that the two have sometimes been considered dialects of a single language, sometimes called Mosina (after the name of Mwesen village in the language Mota). However, studies have shown that Mwesen and Vurës have various dissimilarities, e.g. in their vowel systems,[2] in their noun articles,[3] in their pronoun paradigms.[4]
Vurës was described in 2016 by linguist Catriona Malau.[5]
Phonology
Vurës has 9 phonemic vowels. These are all short monophthongs /i ɪ ɛ a œ ø y ɔ ʊ/:[6]
| Front | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| plain | round | ||
| Close | i | y | |
| Near-close | ɪ | ø | ʊ |
| Open-mid | ɛ | œ | ɔ |
| Open | a | ||
References
Main reference
- Malau, Catriona (2016). A grammar of Vurës, Vanuatu. Pacific Linguistics, 651. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. ISBN 978-1-5015-0364-1.
Other references
- François, Alexandre (2005), "Unraveling the history of the vowels of seventeen northern Vanuatu languages", Oceanic Linguistics, 44 (2): 443–504, doi:10.1353/ol.2005.0034
- François, Alexandre (2007), "Noun articles in Torres and Banks languages: Conservation and innovation", in Siegel, Jeff; Lynch, John; Eades, Diana (eds.), Language Description, History and Development: Linguistic indulgence in memory of Terry Crowley, Creole Language Library 30, Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 313–326, doi:10.1075/cll.30.30fra
- François, Alexandre (2009), "Verbal aspect and personal pronouns: The history of aorist markers in north Vanuatu", in Pawley, Andrew; Adelaar, Alexander (eds.), Austronesian historical linguistics and culture history: A festschrift for Bob Blust, vol. 601, Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, pp. 179–195
- François, Alexandre (2011), "Social ecology and language history in the northern Vanuatu linkage: A tale of divergence and convergence", Journal of Historical Linguistics, 1 (2): 175–246, doi:10.1075/jhl.1.2.03fra.
- François, Alexandre (2012), "The dynamics of linguistic diversity: Egalitarian multilingualism and power imbalance among northern Vanuatu languages", International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2012 (214): 85–110, doi:10.1515/ijsl-2012-0022
- François, Alexandre (2016), "The historical morphology of personal pronouns in northern Vanuatu", in Pozdniakov, Konstantin (ed.), Comparatisme et reconstruction : tendances actuelles, Faits de Langues, vol. 47, Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 25–60.
External links
- Vurës—English dictionary, by Catriona Malau.
- Audio recordings in the Vurës language, in open access, by A. François (source: Pangloss Collection, CNRS).
Notes
- ^ a b François (2012): 88).
- ^ François (2005), François (2011): 194).
- ^ François (2007).
- ^ François (2009), François (2016).
- ^ Malau (2016).
- ^ François (2005:446), François (2011:194)
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