Mota language
Mota | |
---|---|
Native to | Vanuatu |
Region | Mota island |
Native speakers | 750 (2012)[1] |
Language family | Austronesian
|
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | mtt |
Glottolog | mota1237 |
ELP | Mota |
Mota is an Oceanic language spoken by about 750 people on Mota Island, in the Banks Islands of Vanuatu.[2]
History[]
During the period 1840-1940, Mota was used as a missionary lingua franca throughout areas of Oceania included in the Melanesian Mission, an Anglican missionary agency.[3] Mota was used on Norfolk Island, in religious education; on other islands with different vernacular languages, it served as the language of liturgical prayers, hymns, and some other religious purposes. Elizabeth Fairburn Colenso translated religious material into the language.[3]
Robert Henry Codrington compiled the first dictionary of Mota (1896), and worked with and others to produce a large number of early publications in this language.
Phonology[]
Mota has 5 phonemic vowels, /i e a o u/.[4]
Front | Back | |
---|---|---|
Close | i | u |
Close-mid | e | o |
Open | a |
Notes[]
- ^ François (2012): 88).
- ^ Linguistic map of north Vanuatu, showing range of Mota.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Transcribed by the Right Reverend Dr. Terry Brown (2007). "ELIZABETH COLENSO: Her work for the Melanesian Mission; by her eldest granddaughter Francis Edith Swabey 1956". Retrieved 5 December 2015.
- ^ François (2005:445, 460).
References[]
- Codrington, Robert H.; Palmer, Jim (1896), A Dictionary of the Language of Mota, Sugarloaf Island, Banks' Islands, with a short grammar and index, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
- 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, S2CID 131668754
- 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, S2CID 145208588
External links[]
- Portions of the Book of Common Prayer in Mota
- Texts in Mota from Project Canterbury
- Audio recordings in the Mota language, in open access, by A. François (source: Pangloss Collection of CNRS).
- Materials on Mota are included in the open access Arthur Capell collections (AC1 and AC2) held by Paradisec.
- Languages of Vanuatu
- Banks–Torres languages
- Torba Province
- Vanuatu stubs
- Oceanic language stubs