Northeast Malakula language
Oceanic language spoken on Vanuatu
Northeast Malakula, or Uripiv-Wala-Rano-Atchin, is a dialect chain spoken on the islands of Uripiv, Wala, Rano, and Atchin and on the mainland opposite to these islands. Uripiv-Wala-Rano-Atchin is spoken today by about 9,000 people. Literacy rate of its speakers in their own language is 10-30%.
Uripiv-Wala-Rano-Atchin forms a dialect chain. The Uripiv dialect is the most southerly of these and has 85% of its words in common with Atchin, the most northerly dialect. Uripiv is spoken on the north-east coast of Malakula.
The Uripiv dialect is one of the few documented languages that use the rare bilabial trill, a feature that is not found in the Atchin dialect.
01Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | lab. | |||||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | pʷ | t | tʃ | k |
| prenasal | ᵐb | ᵐbʷ | ⁿd | ᵑɡ | ||
| Fricative | β | s | ||||
| Nasal | m | mʷ | n | ŋ | ||
| Tap | ɾ | |||||
| Trill | voiced | r | ||||
| prenasal | ᵐʙ | (ⁿᵈr) | ||||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Approximant | w | j | ||||
- The sound /ⁿᵈr/ is considered rare, and its phonemic status is unclear.
| Labial | Alveolar | Velar | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | lab. | ||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | pʷ | t | k |
| prenasal | ᵐb | ᵐbʷ | |||
| Affricate | ts | ||||
| Fricative | β | s | |||
| Nasal | m | mʷ | n | ŋ | |
| Trill | r | ||||
| Lateral | l | ||||
| Approximant | w | ||||
- Some speakers may pronounce sounds /s, ts/ as [ʃ, tʃ] in free variation.
Vowels
-
- Sounds /e, o, œ/ are heard as [ɛ, ɔ, ə] in unstressed closed-syllable position.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Northeast Malakula language”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
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