Austronesian language spoken in Vanuatu
Koro is anOceanic language spoken onGaua island inVanuatu. Its 280 speakers live in the village ofKoro, on the south coast of Gaua.[2]
Koro is a distinct language from its immediate neighbours,Dorig (300 sp.) andOlrat (4 sp.).[3]
The nameKoro, spelled natively asKōrō[kʊrʊ], is an endonym referring to the village.
Koro has eightphonemic vowels. These include sevenmonophthongs/iɪɛaɔʊu/ and onediphthong/ɛ͡a/.[4]
The diphthong[ɛ͡a] is spelled as⟨ä⟩.
The system ofpersonal pronouns in Koro contrastsclusivity, and distinguishes fournumbers (singular,dual,trial, plural).[5]
Spatial reference in Koro is based on a system of geocentric (absolute) directionals, which is typical ofOceanic languages.[6]
Notes and references
[edit]- François, Alexandre (2005),"Unraveling the history of the vowels of seventeen northern Vanuatu languages"(PDF),Oceanic Linguistics,44 (2):443–504,doi:10.1353/ol.2005.0034,S2CID 131668754
- —— (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.
- —— (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
- —— (2015)."The ins and outs ofup anddown: Disentangling the nine geocentric space systems of Torres and Banks languages"(PDF). In Alexandre François; Sébastien Lacrampe; Michael Franjieh; Stefan Schnell (eds.).The languages of Vanuatu: Unity and diversity. Studies in the Languages of Island Melanesia. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics. pp. 137–195.hdl:1885/14819.ISBN 978-1-922185-23-5.
- —— (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
- —— (2021)."In love with an eel man".Pangloss Collection. Paris: CNRS. Retrieved22 Feb 2022.
|
|---|
|
- * indicates proposed status
- ? indicates classification dispute
- † indicatesextinct status
|
|
|---|
|
- * indicates proposed status
- ? indicates classification dispute
- † indicatesextinct status
|
