Apma
Native to	Vanuatu
Region	Pentecost Island
Native speakers	7,800 (2001)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic North-Central Vanuatu Central Vanuatu Apma
Writing system	Latin,Avoiuli
Language codes
ISO 639-3	app
Glottolog	apma1240
Apma is not endangered according to the classification system of theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Apma (orAbma orCentral Raga^[2]) is the language of centralPentecost island inVanuatu. Apma is anOceanic language (a branch of theAustronesian language family). Within Vanuatu it sits between North Vanuatu and Central Vanuatu languages, and combines features of both groups.

With an estimated 7,800 native speakers (in the year 2000), Apma is the most widely spoken of Pentecost's native languages, and the fifth largest vernacular in Vanuatu as a whole. In recent times Apma has spread at the expense of other indigenous languages such asSowa andSke. Apma is increasingly mixed with words and expressions fromBislama, Vanuatu's national language.

Like Pentecost's other languages, Apma is named after the local word for "what" or "something". Locally it is usually referred to simply asdalekte "language" ordaleda "our language". Many people from other areas of Vanuatu recognise the language by the catchphrasete gabis meaning "good" or "OK", or refer informally to its speakers aswakin, an Apma term of address for brothers or friends.

Some linguists treat the Apma soundp as anallophone ofb, and thus write the language's name asAbma. However, this interpretation of the language's phonology is disputed, and locallyApma is the preferred spelling.^[3]

Modern Apma has three well-defined dialects:

• Suru Mwerani, the southernmost dialect, is the most widely spoken and well-documented dialect. It is spoken inMelsisi, Tansip, Vanrasini and surrounding villages, and in the formerSowa area between Melsisi and Ranmawot.
• Suru Rabwanga (orSuru Bo), the central dialect, is spoken in the mountainous area between Bwatnapni and Namaram. It is very similar to Suru Mwerani, and the two dialects are mixed in villages such as Bwatnapni, Enaa, Wutsunmwel and Naruwa.
• Suru Kavian is a small, endangered and very distinctive dialect, spoken in the area to the north and east of Namaram. It is hard for speakers of the other two dialects to understand.

Mwerani andrabwanga are the words for "today" in their respective dialects, whilebo andkavi are the words for "pig".

Two other probable Apma dialects,Asuk (orAsa) in the south-west andWolwolan (orVolvoluana) in the north, are now extinct.

6 vowel sounds are present in Apma:^{[CS 1]}

20 consonants are in Apma:^{[CS 1]}

Theconsonant phonemes of Apma areb,d,g,h,k,l,m,n,ng (as in English "singer"),r,s,t,ts (orj), bilabialv,w, and labiovelarbw andmw. The consonantsv andw are realised asp where they occur at the end of a syllable;b may also be devoiced top when next to an unvoiced consonant, as in-tpo "lie down".

Clusters of consonants cannot occur within a syllable. Unlike in closely relatedRaga language, word roots in Apma can end with a consonant.

In archaic and northern varieties of Apma,prenasalization of consonants occurs in some environments, so thatb becomesmb,d becomesnd, andg becomesngg. This feature has been lost in modern Suru Mwerani dialect.

Apma's fivevowels come in short forms (a,e,i,o andu) and long forms (aa,ee,ii,oo anduu). Long vowels typically occur where a consonant (most commonlyr) has historically been lost. Vowels can occur alone or in various combinations. A few words (e.g.miu "wild cane") contain a distinctive rounded high-front vowel, generally written asiu although perceived by speakers simply as a variant ofu.

Stress is normally on the penultimate syllable of a word. However, syllables that end with a consonant or a long vowel take stress in precedence to other syllables.

Basic word order in Apma issubject–verb–object. Occasionally, a subject may occur out of its usual position, in which case it is marked withna:

Bo mwe gani bwarus = The pig is eating papaya

Mwe gani bwarus,na bo = It's eating papaya, the pig

Personal pronouns are distinguished byperson andnumber. They are not distinguished bygender. The basic pronouns differ substantially between dialects:

The dual or plural form of "you" is occasionally used in place of the singular form to show extreme respect.

Nouns in Apma are generally not preceded byarticles.Plurality is indicated by placing the pronounnii ("them") or a number after the noun:

bwihil = [the] bird

bwihil nii = [the] birds

bwihil katsil = three birds

Nouns may be eitherfree, ordirectly possessed. Directly possessed nouns are suffixed to indicate whom an item belongs to. For example:

dalek = my voice

dalem = your voice

dalen = his/her voice

dalen subu = the chief's voice

dalekte = voice (generic)

Possession may also be indicated by the use ofpossessive classifiers, separate words that occur before or after the noun and take possessive suffixes. These classifiers are:

• no- for general possessions (nok watang, "my basket")
• bila- for things that are cared for, such as crops and livestock (bilada bo, "our pig")
• ka- for things to be eaten (kam tsi, "your sugarcane")
• ma- for things to be drunk (maa sileng, "their water")
• na- for associations, over which the possessor has no control (vini nak, "my home island")

The possessive suffixes are as follows:

In Suru Kavian dialect, vowels in certain directly possessed nouns and possessive classifiers change according to the pattern illustrated below. This does not occur in other dialects:

A verb may be transformed into a noun by the addition of anominalising suffix-an:

wel = to dance (verb)

welan = a dance (noun)

Modifiers generally come after a noun, although those derived from nouns may come before:

vet = stone

vet kavet = four stones

vet kau = big stone

biri vet = small stone (biri "small" comes from the noun "seed")

Verbs in Apma are usually preceded by a subject pronoun and by a marker indicating thetense,aspect andmood of the action.

The subject pronouns are as follows:

Apma has the following tense/aspect/mood markers:

The full forms of these markers are used in the 3rd person singular (where there is no subject pronoun):

mwe leli = he does it

te leli = he did it

mwan leli = he will do it

nema leli = he's going to do it

bat leli = he should do it

ne leli = let him do it

ba leli = he's in danger of doing it

Elsewhere, short forms of these markers are suffixed to the subject pronoun:

nam leli = I do it

nat leli = I did it

nan leli = I will do it

nama leli = I'm going to do it

nabat leli = I should do it

na leli = let me do it

naba leli = I'm in danger of doing it

The imperfective marker alters to some extent to match the sound of the verb it is attached to. It is usually absent altogether when the verb begins withb orbw. (In Suru Kavian dialect, it is absent when the verb begins with any consonant other thanr.) For example, in Suru Mwerani:

mwi sip = he goes down

mwo rop = he runs

mu rus = he moves

---ban = he goes

Dual (two-person) forms consist of the plural forms withru (orri in Suru Kavian) inserted after the tense/aspect/mood marker:

ram leli = they do it

ramru leli = the two of them do it

There is a pattern ofverb-consonant mutation wherebyv at the start of a verb changes tob, andw changes tobw, in certain aspects/moods:

natvan = I went

naban = I am going

nanban ornanvan = I will go

In northern and archaic varieties of Apma, there is also mutation ofk tog, and oft tod.

Particles that can occur in a verb phrase include:

• a minimizing markerga(m), "just"
• a partitive markerte, "partly" or "at all"
• an additive markerm(u), "furthermore"
• a completive marker, alsote, "already"

The direct object, if one is present, immediately follows the verb. When the object is inanimate and already known, it need not be stated explicitly:

nat gita kik = I saw you

nat gita = I saw [it]

Thepassive voice can be formed by attaching the suffix-an to the verb:

te lelian = it was done

When giving instructions, verbs are preceded simply by the 2nd person subject pronounko orkaru "you":

Ko leli! = Do it! (to one person)

Karu leli! = Do it! (to two people, or politely to a group)

Ka leli! = Do it! (plural, considered impolite and usually heard only with children)

Many verbs in Apma have distincttransitive andintransitive forms. (These distinctions have been lost to some extent in Suru Kavian dialect.) For example, in Suru Mwerani:

In Suru Mwerani dialect, and to a lesser extent Suru Rabwanga, vowels have been lost from a number of verb roots, producing 'bound verbs' which begin with a pair of consonants (such as-mni and-slo above). Since clusters of consonants within a syllable are prohibited in Apma, speakers usually cite these verbs with a prefix such asmwa- attached (mwamni,mwaslo), and do not identify them as words when unprefixed.

In addition to verbs denoting actions, Apma has a large number ofstative verbs that describe an item. For example, there is a verb "to be red" (meme) and a verb "to be good" (gabis). Apma uses stative verbs in many of the situations whereadjectives would be used in English.

Unlike neighbouringRaga language, Apma has acopular verb,(v)i orbi. The phrasetei… meaning "it was…" (tevi… in Suru Kavian) is commonly used to focus attention on something or to set the scene.

Verbs in Apma can be linked together in a variety ofserial verb constructions.

Negation is marked by the discontinuous morphemeba…nga. Theba always occurs before the verb and thenga occurs after the verb or after the direct object should one occur as seen in (1)^{[CS 2]} where 'step' is the verb and 'breadfruit branch' the direct object. In the absence of a direct object the verb alone sits within the morpheme as seen in.

A derivative of the common negative morpheme exists to indicate in-completion.Bado… ngamwa means 'not yet' and codes for the verb not being completed, with expectation that completion of the verb will eventually occur as seen in (2).[CS 3] Here, the -do inbado codes for 'yet' as does the -mwa inngamwa. In comparison, (3)^{[CS 4]} indicates that the subject of the sentence is 'not very good', leaving no room for further completion.Bado…ngamwa is not used in this examples but provides evidence of how the sentence is effected by in-completion. Also to be noted is that in both examples a word for 'be.good' is included but in (2) it occurs once while it occurs twice in (3). This could indicate thatmnok or another action verb takes the place of one of the ''be.good''s in (3).

The inclusion of a negative marker transforms a sentence from non-verbal to verbal, as such, non-verbal negative sentences do not exist in Apma. In order to successfully indicate negation, some form of the copular verbbibi, meaning 'be', must be inserted within the morpheme, otherwise nothing would occur within the discontinued morpheme. In (4),^{[CS 5]} the copular verbbibi is in the third person singular form and occurs before the partitivete and the verb.

If an event is unlikely to occur, the irrealis modality markermwan occurs before the negation morpheme as seen in (5).^{[CS 6]}

Although a hypothetical can be classed as an irrealis event, the conventions differ very slightly. In a hypothetical situationbat precedes the negation morpheme as seen in (6).[CS 7] Here, the hypothetical marker indicates that the new word for "bwala kul" did not exist in the past therefore, if it had been used, it could not have been recognised.

Theprohibitive refers to the negation of an imperative as seen in (7)^{[CS 3]} and is marked with the discontinuous prohibitive markerba…an that functions similarly to the negation marker. The verb is enclosed in the morpheme and there is no direct object. Prohibitives are largely intransitive, thus the object is implied as seen in (8) where the food being eaten is not mentioned by the speaker but is still understood by interlocutors. It could be that because the focus is on the act of eating rather than what is specifically being eaten, the inclusion of a direct object would only distract from the emphatic nature of the imperative.

Te in its partitive form almost always precedes thean in a prohibitive sentence as seen in (8).^{[CS 8]} The partitive is used to create emphasis, which is a defining characteristic of imperatives. Although there are examples of prohibitives withoutte, they do not occur in natural discourse.

Boroguu, the name of a popularkava variety, comes from Apma.

Notes on the grammar and vocabulary of Apma language were first made by Catholic missionaries atMelsisii in the early 20th century.

Cindy Schneider of theUniversity of New England completed a grammar and short dictionary of the Suru Mwerani dialect of Apma language in the late 2000s. Building on Schneider's work, Pascal Temwakon and Andrew Gray producedBongmehee, an illustrated dictionary of the language.

The other two dialects of Apma remain poorly documented.

Abbreviations used in examples are taken fromCindy Schneider's description.^{[CS 9]}

• Pages from: Schneider, Cynthia. 2010.A grammar of Abma: a language of Pentecost Island, Vanuatu:

• Other notes

• Crowley, Terry (2000). "The language situation in Vanuatu".Current Issues in Language Planning.1 (1):47–132.doi:10.1080/14664200008668005.S2CID 144268250.
• Gray, Andrew (2013).The Languages of Pentecost Island. British Friends of Vanuatu Society.
• Lynch, John; Crowley, Terry (2001).Languages of Vanuatu: A New Survey and Bibliography. Pacific Linguistics. Canberra: Australian National University.doi:10.15144/PL-517.ISBN 0-85883-469-3.
• Schneider, Cynthia (2010).A grammar of Abma: a language of Pentecost Island, Vanuatu. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.ISBN 9780858836075.
• Temwakon, Pascal; Gray, Andrew (2008).Bongmehee: A dictionary of Apma language(PDF). Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2023-08-12.
• Tryon, Darrell (1976).New Hebrides Languages: An Internal Classification. Pacific Linguistics.ISBN 9780858831520.

• The Languages of Pentecost Island - information on ApmaArchived 2016-03-16 at theWayback Machine
• PARADISEC open-access archive ofApma language recordings
• Database of audio recordings in Apma (Melsisi) - basic Catholic prayers^{[permanent dead link]}

• Languages of Vanuatu
• Penama languages

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