| Vurës | |
|---|---|
| Vureas | |
| Pronunciation | [βyˈrœs] |
| Native to | Vanuatu |
| Region | Vanua Lava |
Native speakers | 2,000 (2016) [1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
msn (shared with
Mwesen) |
| Glottolog |
vure1239 |
| ELP | Vurës |
 Vurës is not endangered according to the classification system of the
UNESCO
Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
Vurës (Vureas, Vures) is an Oceanic language spoken in the southern area of Vanua Lava Island, in the Banks Islands of northern Vanuatu, by about 2000 speakers. [2]
Vurës was described by linguist Catriona Malau, in the form of a grammar [2] and a dictionary. [3]
Name
The name Vurës [βyˈrœs] is named after the bay located in southwestern Vanua Lava in the language itself. In Mota, the bay is referred to as Vureas [βureas]. Cognates in other Torres-Banks languages include Mwotlap Vuyes [βuˈjɛs] and Mwesen Vures [βuˈrɛs]. These come from a reconstructed Proto-Torres–Banks form *βureas(i,u), with an unknown final high vowel.
Dialectology
Vurës shows enough similarities with the neighbouring language Mwesen that the two have sometimes been considered dialects of a single language, sometimes called Mosina (after the name of Mwesen village in the language Mota). And indeed, a 2018 glottometric study has calculated that Vurës and Mwesen share 85% of their historical innovations, revealing a long history of shared development between these two lects. [4]
However, studies have shown that Mwesen and Vurës have various dissimilarities, e.g. in their vowel systems, [5] in their noun articles, [6] in their pronoun paradigms [7] [8] — enough to be considered clearly distinct.
Phonology
Consonants
|
Labial- velar |
Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | k͡pʷ ⟨q⟩ | t̪ ⟨t⟩ | k ⟨k⟩ | ( ʔ) | ||
| prenasal | ᵐb ⟨b⟩ | ⁿd̪ ⟨d⟩ | |||||
| Nasal | ŋ͡mʷ ⟨m̄⟩ | m ⟨m⟩ | n ⟨n⟩ | ŋ ⟨n̄⟩ | |||
| Fricative | β ⟨v⟩ | s ⟨s⟩ | ɣ ⟨g⟩ | ||||
| Liquid | rhotic | r ⟨r⟩ | |||||
| lateral | l ⟨l⟩ | ||||||
| Semivowel | w ⟨w⟩ | ||||||
- /r/ is also heard as a tap [ ɾ] in free variation.
- A glottal stop /ʔ/ only rarely occurs in some words.
- /β/ is heard as [ p̚] before a voiceless stop.
- /k͡pʷ/ is heard as [ k͡p] when preceding another consonant.
- Stop sounds /t̪ k/ are aspirated [ t̪ʰ kʰ] before vowels. [9]
Vowels
Vurës has 9 phonemic vowels. These are all short monophthongs /i e ɛ a œ ø y ɔ o/: [10] [11]
| Front | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| plain | round | ||
| Close | i ⟨i⟩ | y ⟨u⟩ | ( ʊ) ⟨u⟩ |
| Close-mid | e ⟨ē⟩ | ø ⟨ö⟩ | o ⟨ō⟩ |
| Open-mid | ɛ ⟨e⟩ | œ ⟨ë⟩ | ɔ ⟨o⟩ |
| Open | a ⟨a⟩ | ||
- [ʊ] is only a marginal sound that occurs in a small amount of words, mostly borrowings. [9]
- The vowel inventory also includes a diphthong [i͡a] ⟨ia⟩. [12]
Sample text
La masawre i no no gö mörös nana qan̄ris o qiat, nana qēs o ralēt, qēs lēt lēt qēt, na van me, na sēs o um. Na sēs qēt o um, nana le o ralēt, na tuwegev. No mö tuwegev kal qēt, nana bun kēl o vet ni van lē m̄ēkē qan̄ris, bun bun qēt o vet, mē qēt na ukëg o ev ni ës ti.
'When I want to bake taro, I break up the firewood, break up all the firewood, then I come and I take the stones out of the oven. I take out all the stones from the oven, I get the firewood, and I make the fire. I build up the fire, then I put the stones back on top of the oven, I put all the stones back, then I leave the fire to smoke.' [13]
References
Citations
-
^
Vurës at
Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ a b Malau 2016.
- ^ Malau 2021.
- ^ Kalyan & François 2018.
- ^ François 2005.
- ^ François 2007.
- ^ François 2009.
- ^ François 2016.
- ^ a b Malau 2016, p. 20.
- ^ François 2005, p. 446.
- ^ François 2011, p. 194.
- ^ François 2005, p. 459-460.
- ^ Malau 2016, pp. 41–42.
Bibliography
- Malau, Catriona (2016). A Grammar of Vurës, Vanuatu. Pacific Linguistics, 651. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. doi: 10.1515/9781501503641. ISBN 978-1-5015-0364-1. S2CID 125885475.
- Malau, Catriona (2021). A Dictionary of Vurës, Vanuatu. Asia-Pacific Linguistics (1st ed.). Canberra: ANU Press. ISBN 978-1-76046-460-8. Retrieved 2021-07-10.
- François, Alexandre (2005), "Unraveling the history of the vowels of seventeen northern Vanuatu languages", Oceanic Linguistics, 44 (2): 443–504, CiteSeerX 10.1.1.395.4359, doi: 10.1353/ol.2005.0034, S2CID 131668754
- 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, doi: 10.1075/cll.30.30fra
- François, Alexandre (2009), "Verbal aspect and personal pronouns: The history of aorist markers in north Vanuatu" (PDF), in Pawley, Andrew; Adelaar, Alexander (eds.), Austronesian historical linguistics and culture history: A festschrift for Bob Blust, vol. 601, Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, pp. 179–195
- 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, S2CID 42217419.
- 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 (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
- Kalyan, Siva; François, Alexandre (2018), "Freeing the Comparative Method from the tree model: A framework for Historical Glottometry" (PDF), in Kikusawa, Ritsuko; Reid, Laurie (eds.), Let's talk about trees: Tackling Problems in Representing Phylogenic Relationships among Languages, Senri Ethnological Studies, 98, Ōsaka: National Museum of Ethnology, pp. 59–89.
External links
- Vurës—English dictionary, by Catriona Malau.
- Audio recordings in the Vurës language, in open access, by A. François ( Pangloss Collection, CNRS).
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