| Mele-Fila | |
|---|---|
| Ifira-Mele | |
| Native to | Vanuatu |
| Region | Efate,Ifira Island |
Native speakers | 3,500 (2001)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mxe |
| Glottolog | mele1250 |
Mele-Fila (Ifira-Mele) is aPolynesian language spoken inMele andIfira on the island of Efate inVanuatu. In spite of their differences, Mele and Fila are two dialects of the same language and are mutually intelligible. French and English are also fairly common among the residents of Efate.[2]
Mele-Fila is an everyday language for residents of Mele village and Fila Island. Mele village, with a population of 1,000, is located roughly 7 km (4.3 mi) north-west ofPort Vila, the nation’s capital. Fila Island, with a population of 400, is located about 1.5 km (0.93 mi) west of Vila.[2]
Based on archaeological evidence, it is understood that peoples speaking Austronesian languages originated on the island ofTaiwan about 6,000 years ago. Some of their descendants formed theLapita civilisation, who sailed toRemote Oceania, includingVanuatu, roughly 3,200 years ago.[3]
The population of Mele-Fila belongs to thePolynesian outliers, who historically came from Central Polynesia (Tonga, Samoa) during the last two millennia.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Alveolo- palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labio- velarized | plain | ||||||
| Nasal | mʷ | m | n | ŋ | |||
| Plosive | pʷ | p | t | t͡ɕ | k | ||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ||||
| voiced | v | ||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Approximant | w | l | h | ||||
This language is unusual among Polynesian languages for its phoneme /tɕ/. In the Fila dialect, /p/ and /m/ are not distinct from theirlabialized counterparts.[4]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Low | a |
Mele vowels are similar to other Polynesian vowels as there are /i e a o u/ long and short. More than half of the words used in the language hail from Proto Polynesian language.[2]Stressed initial vowels were kept, while unstressed initial vowels were removed.
Articles and verbal particles with unstressed long vowels often have their unstressed vowel shortened:[2]
Consonant clusters (strings of consonants without a vowel) exist, but can only be formed from these three combinations:[5]
Word stress usually falls on the second-to-last syllable. Mele-Fila words usually contain at least three vowels.[4]Similar to many Polynesian languages, this requires counting long vowels as two vowels.[2]
Mele-Fila has borrowed significantly from theEfate languages ofVanuatu.[4] It also borrowed fromEnglish andFrench viaBislama, one of Vanuatu's national languages andcreole language.[4] This has caused itssyllable structure to allow (C)VC consonants as well as (C)V.[5] Consonants can begeminated(vocally lengthened), which indicates that a noun isplural.[5]
Mele-Fila has a Subject – Verb – Object sentence order.[2]
Below is a list of "verbal particles":[2]