Volow language

Volow (pronounced [βʊˈlʊw]; formerly known as Valuwa or Valuga) is an Oceanic language variety which used to be spoken in the area of Aplow, in the eastern part of the island of Motalava, in Vanuatu.^[2]

Sociolinguistics[]

Volow has receded historically in favour of the now dominant language Mwotlap.^[1] It is now only remembered by a single passive speaker, who lives in the village of Aplow — the new name of what was previously known as Volow.

The similarity of Volow with Mwotlap is such that the two communalects may be considered dialects of a single language.

Phonology[]

Volow, like Mwotlap, has 7 phonemic vowels, which are all short monophthongs:^[3][4]

The language also has a typologically rare consonant: a rounded, prenasalised voiced labial-velar plosive [ᵑᵐɡ͡bʷ]:^[4] e.g. [n.lɛᵑᵐɡ͡bʷɛβɪn] “woman”^[5] (spelled n-leq̄evēn in the local orthography).

External links[]

• Presentation of the Volow language, by linguist A. François. Access to the Volow corpus (Pangloss Collection of CNRS).
• A story in Volow presented in bilingual (Volow–French) format, with audio recording (Pangloss Collection of CNRS). This story was recorded by anthropologist Bernard Vienne in 1969 from the last fluent speaker Wanhand [†1986], and was translated by A. François in 2003, with the help of Wanhand's son.

Notes[]

References[]

• François, Alexandre (2005a), "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 (2005b), "A typological overview of Mwotlap, an Oceanic language of Vanuatu", Linguistic Typology, 9 (1): 115–146, doi:10.1515/lity.2005.9.1.115

• 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, hdl:1885/29283.
• 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
• François, Alexandre (2013), "Shadows of bygone lives: The histories of spiritual words in northern Vanuatu", in Mailhammer, Robert (ed.), Lexical and structural etymology: Beyond word histories, Studies in Language Change, 11, Berlin: DeGruyter Mouton, pp. 185–244, ISBN 978-1-61451-058-1

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