Olrat language

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Olrat
Native toVanuatu
RegionGaua
Native speakers
3 (2012)[1]
Language family
Austronesian
Language codes
ISO 639-3olr
Glottologolra1234
ELPOlrat
Not to be confused with OLRAT.

Olrat is a moribund Oceanic language spoken on Gaua island in Vanuatu.

The language[]

A. François with †Maten Womal, the last storyteller of Olrat (Gaua, Vanuatu, 2003)

The three remaining speakers of Olrat live on the middle-west coast of Gaua.[2] They merged into the larger village of Jōlap where Lakon is dominant, after they left their inland hamlet of Olrat in the first half of the 20th century.[1]

Alexandre François identifies Olrat as a distinct language from its immediate neighbor Lakon, on phonological,[3] grammatical,[4] and lexical[5] grounds.

Phonology[]

Olrat has 14 phonemic vowels. These include 7 short /i ɪ ɛ a ɔ ʊ u/ and 7 long vowels /iː ɪː ɛː aː ɔː ʊː uː/.[6]

Olrat vowels
  Front Back
Near-close i ∙ iː u ∙ uː
Close-mid ɪ ∙ ɪː ʊ ∙ ʊː
Open-mid ɛ ∙ ɛː ɔ ∙ ɔː
Open a ∙ aː

Historically, the phonologization of vowel length originates in the compensatory lengthening of short vowels when the voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ was lost syllable-finally.[7]

Grammar[]

The system of personal pronouns in Olrat contrasts clusivity, and distinguishes four numbers (singular, dual, trial, plural).[8]

Spatial reference in Olrat is based on a system of geocentric (absolute) directionals, which is typical of Oceanic languages.[9]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b François (2012).
  2. ^ List of Banks islands languages.
  3. ^ François (2005)
  4. ^ François (2007)
  5. ^ François (2011)
  6. ^ François (2005:445), François (2011:194).
  7. ^ François (2005:461).
  8. ^ François (2016).
  9. ^ François (2015).

Bibliography[]

  • François, Alexandre (2007), "Noun articles in Torres and Banks languages: Conservation and innovation" (PDF), 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
  • 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, 47, Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 25–60

External links[]

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