South Efate language
| South Efate | |
|---|---|
| Fate, Erakor | |
| Native to | Northeast Vanuatu |
| Region | Efate Island |
|
Native speakers
|
6,000 (2001) |
|
Austronesian
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | sout2856 |
The South Efate language is a Nuclear Southern Oceanic language of the Malayo-Polynesian language family, spoken on the island of Efate in central Vanuatu. As of 2005[update], there are approximately 6,000 speakers who live in coastal villages from Pango to Eton. The language's grammar has been studied by Nick Thieberger, who is working on a book of stories and a dictionary of the language.
South Efate is closely related to Nguna and to Lelepa. Based on shared features with southern Vanuatu languages (including echo–subject marking, and the free and preposed 1st-singular-possessive morphemes), Lynch (2001) suggests it could form part of a southern Vanuatu subgroup that includes New Caledonia.
The South Efate language has a total of 20 phonemes consisting of 15 consonant and 5 vowel sounds.
Consonants
Vowels
As seen in the above chart, South Efate's vowel phoneme inventory is that of a five-vowel system; this is one of the most commonly seen vowel inventories in any given language in the world and also especially evident in many Oceanic languages. The distinction between short and long vowels is non-existent in the South Efate language.
The system of numerals in South Efate is base-5 (quinary). Numbers two through five are distinct numerals that are then seen repeated in slight variation for the numbers seven to ten. The pattern of the numerals can be seen in the table below.
Ralim iskei can be used as an example to see the method for displaying numbers ten and above in South Efate; the numeral for ten ralim is followed by its multiplier, which in this case is iskei for one. The term for and atmat is added after the multiplier with an additional numeral to form a number such as thirty seven:
There are two ways of marking adnominal possession in South Efate: through the use of a possessive pronoun (indirect possession), or directly on the noun (direct possession). Indirect possession is used for general possession, while direct possession is used for nouns that are closely associated items (e.g., body parts or products, kinship terms, etc.).
...
Wikipedia