Mwerlap language

Mwerlap
Native to	Vanuatu
Region	Merelava, Gaua
Native speakers	ca. 1,100 (2012)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic Vanuatu Northern Vanuatu East Vanuatu Mwerlap
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mrm

Mwerlap is an Oceanic language spoken in the south of the Banks Islands in Vanuatu.

Its 1100 speakers live mostly in Merelava and Merig, but a fair proportion have also settled the east coast of Gaua island. Besides, a number of Mwerlap speakers live in the two cities of Vanuatu, Port Vila and Luganville.

Names

Mwerlap is the name of Merelava island in the language, phonetically [ŋʷɞrlap]. The language is sometimes referred to as Merelava or Merlav in the literature.

Merelava reflects the name of the island in Mota, another language of the Banks Islands. Merlav represents an earlier attempt at transcribing the vernacular name of the island.

Phonology

Mwerlap has 12 phonemic vowels. These include 9 monophthongs /i ɪ ɛ a ɞ ɵ ʉ ɔ ʊ/ and 3 diphthongs /ɛ͡a ɔ͡ɞ ʊ͡ɵ/.

Bibliography

• François, Alexandre (2005), "Unraveling the history of vowels in seventeen north Vanuatu languages" (PDF), Oceanic Linguistics, 44 (2): 443–504
• François, Alexandre (2012), "The dynamics of linguistic diversity: Egalitarian multilingualism and power imbalance among northern Vanuatu languages", International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 214: 85–110, doi:10.1515/ijsl-2012-0022

External links

• Linguistic map of north Vanuatu, showing range of Mwerlap.
• Online material in Mwerlap (Merlav): audio recordings, documents, etc.
• Na Buk Tatar, Portions of the Book of Common Prayer in the Merelava (Mwerlap) language, digitized by Richard Mammana