| Mwotlap | |
|---|---|
| Motlav | |
| M̄otlap | |
| Pronunciation | [ŋ͡mʷɔtˈlap] |
| Native to | Vanuatu |
| Region | Mota Lava island,Banks Islands |
Native speakers | 2,100 (2012)[1] |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mlv |
| Glottolog | motl1237 |
| ELP | Motlav |
 Mwotlap is not endangered according to the classification system of theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
Mwotlap (pronounced[ŋ͡mʷɔtˈlap]; formerly known asMotlav) is anOceanic language spoken by about 2,100 people inVanuatu. The majority of speakers are found on the island ofMotalava in theBanks Islands,[2][3] with smaller communities in the islands ofRa (orAya) andVanua Lava,[4] as well as migrant groups in the two main cities of the country,Santo andPort Vila.
Mwotlap was first described in any detail in 2001, by the linguistAlexandre François.
Volow, which used to be spoken on the same island, may be considered a dialect or a separate language.
The Mwotlap language is named after the island ofMotalava, which is locally known asMwotlap.
Mwotlap is spoken by about 2,100 people in theBanks Islands, in the North ofVanuatu. Among them, 1,640 live on the island ofMota Lava and its neighbor island,Ra. It is also spoken by a few hundred people living elsewhere in Vanuatu:
Mwotlap belongs to theTorres–Banks linkage withinSouthern Oceanic, one of the subgroups of theOceanic family, itself part of the largerAustronesian phylum.
Robert Henry Codrington, anAnglican priest who studiedMelanesian societies, first described Mwotlap in1885. While focusing mainly onMota, Codrington dedicated twelve pages of his workThe Melanesian Languages to the "Motlav" language. Despite being very short, this description can be used to show several changes that occurred in Mwotlap during the 20th century, such as the change ofr toy (a process demonstrated already in the loanwordEpyaem'Abraham'). Furthermore, Codrington describedVolow, a language closely related to Mwotlap (sometimes even considered a dialect of Mwotlap). Volow, which is extinct today, was spoken in the east of Mota Lava, in the area ofAplow.
Because Mwotlap has been passed down by oral tradition, it has no official writing system. This article uses the orthography devised by linguist Alexandre François, based on the Latin alphabet.[a 1]
Mwotlap contrasts 16 consonant phonemes.
| Labiovelar | Bilabial | Alveolar | Dorsal | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | ŋ͡mʷ⟨m̄⟩ | m⟨m⟩ | n⟨n⟩ | ŋ⟨n̄⟩ | ||
| Stop | voiceless | k͡pʷ⟨q⟩ | t⟨t⟩ | k⟨k⟩ | ||
| prenasalized | ᵐb⟨b⟩ | ⁿd⟨d⟩ | ||||
| Fricative | β[a]⟨v⟩ | s⟨s⟩ | ɣ⟨g⟩ | h⟨h⟩ | ||
| Approximant | w⟨w⟩ | l⟨l⟩ | j⟨y⟩ | |||
Mwotlap has 7phonemic vowels, which are all shortmonophthongs, with no diphthongs being present in the language.[5]
Mwotlap is nottonal.Stress always falls on the last syllable of a word. Historically, before syncope of unstressed vowels, it always fell on the penultimate syllable. When syncope took place, the stressed vowel became part of the last syllable.
Mwotlap'ssyllable structure is (C)V(C), historically resulting from the syncope of unstressed vowels in pre-modern times. This means that no more than two consonants can follow each other within a word and that no word can start or finish with more than one consonant. Recent loanwords, likeskul (from English'school'), are exceptions to this structure.
When a root beginning with two constants forms the beginning of a word, anepenthetic vowel (the same as the next vowel) is inserted between the two consonants.[6] For example, the roottron̄'drunk' can form the following:
Vowel copying is the tendency of certain prefixes to copy the first vowel of the following word.[6] Notable vowel copying prefixes include the articlena-, the locativele-, andte-, a prefix used to form adjectives describing origin. These prefixes formnō-vōy'volcano',ni-hiy'bone', andto-M̄otlap'from Mota Lava', but alsona-pnō'island' andna-nye-k'my blood'. Words stems beginning with two consonants do not permit vowel copying. Thus the stemsVŌY[7] andHIY[8] allow their vowel to be copied, while the stemsVNŌ[9] andDYE[10] do not.
Mwotlap is an SVO language: the word order of a sentence is fixed and is always subject-verb-complement-adverbial.
The system ofpersonal pronouns contrastsclusivity, and distinguishes fournumbers (singular,dual,trial, plural).[11] Human nouns also have four numbers; as for non-human nouns, they do not inflect for number and are expressed as singulars.[12]
Spatial reference in Mwotlap is based on a system of geocentric (absolute) directionals, which is in part typical ofOceanic languages, and in part innovative.[13]
Like mostOceanic languages, Mwotlap creates itsnon-verbal predicates without resorting to acopula (like Eng.to be).[14] As a corollary, its grammar isomnipredicative, i.e. most of its word classes (verbs, adjectives, nouns, numerals, etc.) are directlypredicative.[14]
Na-lo
ART-sun
‹son̄wul›.
ten
Na-lo ‹son̄wul›.
ART-sun ten
'It is ten o'clock.' — liter. "the sun[Sbj] ‹ten›[Pred]."
