Mwerlap | |
---|---|
Merelava, Merlav | |
N̄wërlap | |
Pronunciation | [ŋʷɞrlap] |
Native to | Vanuatu |
Region | Merelava, Gaua |
Native speakers | ca. 1,100 (2012)[1] |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | mrm |
Glottolog | merl1237 |
Mwerlap is an Oceanic language spoken in the south of the Banks Islands in Vanuatu.
Its 1,100 speakers live mostly in Merelava and Merig, but a fair proportion have also settled the east coast of Gaua island.[2] Besides, a number of Mwerlap speakers live in the two cities of Vanuatu, Port Vila and Luganville.
Name
The language is named after Merelava.
Phonology
Mwerlap has 12 phonemic vowels. These include 9 monophthongs /i ɪ ɛ ʉ ɵ ɞ ʊ ɔ a/ and 3 diphthongs /ɛ͡a ɔ͡ɞ ʊ͡ɵ/.[3]
Front | Central rounded |
Back | Diphthongs | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Close | i ⟨i⟩ | ʉ ⟨u⟩ | |||
Near-close | ɪ ⟨ē⟩ | ɵ ⟨ö⟩ | ʊ ⟨ō⟩ | ʊ͡ɵ ⟨ōö⟩ | |
Open-mid | ɛ ⟨e⟩ | ɞ ⟨ë⟩ | ɔ ⟨o⟩ | ɔ͡ɞ ⟨oë⟩ | |
Open | a ⟨a⟩ | ɛ͡a ⟨ea⟩ |
Grammar
The system of personal pronouns in Mwerlap contrasts clusivity, and distinguishes three numbers (singular, dual, plural).[4]
Spatial reference in Mwerlap is based on a system of geocentric (absolute) directionals, which is in part typical of Oceanic languages, and yet innovative.[5]
References
- ^ François (2012: 88).
- ^ François (2012: 97).
- ^ François (2005: 445, 460).
- ^ François (2016).
- ^ François (2015:) 173-175).
Bibliography
- François, Alexandre (2005), "Unraveling the history of the vowels of seventeen northern Vanuatu languages" (PDF), Oceanic Linguistics, 44 (2): 443–504, doi:10.1353/ol.2005.0034, S2CID 131668754
- François, Alexandre (2011), "Social ecology and language history in the northern Vanuatu linkage: A tale of divergence and convergence" (PDF), Journal of Historical Linguistics, 1 (2): 175–246, doi:10.1075/jhl.1.2.03fra, hdl:1885/29283.
- François, Alexandre (2012), "The dynamics of linguistic diversity: Egalitarian multilingualism and power imbalance among northern Vanuatu languages" (PDF), International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2012 (214): 85–110, doi:10.1515/ijsl-2012-0022, S2CID 145208588
- François, Alexandre (2015). "The ins and outs of up and down: Disentangling the nine geocentric space systems of Torres and Banks languages" (PDF). In Alexandre François; Sébastien Lacrampe; Michael Franjieh; Stefan Schnell (eds.). The languages of Vanuatu: Unity and diversity. Studies in the Languages of Island Melanesia. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics. pp. 137–195. hdl:1885/14819. ISBN 978-1-922185-23-5.
- François, Alexandre (2016), "The historical morphology of personal pronouns in northern Vanuatu" (PDF), in Pozdniakov, Konstantin (ed.), Comparatisme et reconstruction : tendances actuelles, Faits de Langues, vol. 47, Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 25–60
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
- Audio recordings in the Mwerlap language, in open access, by A. François (source: Pangloss Collection, CNRS).
- Materials on Mwerlap are included in the open access Arthur Capell collections (AC1 and AC2) held by Paradisec.