| Vitu | |
|---|---|
| Muduapa | |
| Vitu,Mudua | |
| Native to | Papua New Guinea |
Native speakers | (8,800 cited 1991)[1] |
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | wiv |
| Glottolog | mudu1242 |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Vitu (also spelledWitu orVittu, referred by their own speakers aspole matotota 'true speech' orpole Vitu 'Vitu speech') orMuduapa is anOceanic language spoken by about 7,000 people on the islands northwest of the coast ofWest New Britain inPapua New Guinea.
The nameVitu is anendonym. The alternative name,Muduapa, is an exonym from the neighboringUneapa (or Bali) language spoken on Bali Island, which is in Vitu known asMudua, referring to an island northwest of Vitu proper.Mudua andMuduapa can come from a proto-form*Muduap, reflecting the addition of an echo vowel in Bali and the regular loss of final consonants in Vitu.
Vitu and Bali form a subgroup within theMeso-Melanesian cluster of theOceanic languages. Vitu is so closely related to the neighbouringUneapa (or Bali) language that the two are sometimes considered to be a single language, called Bali-Vitu. However, there are some differences, particularly in their phonemic inventories, retention of final consonants (which is lost in Vitu), pronoun systems, and word choices. In general, Bali tends to be more conservative than Vitu in most respects.
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| High | i | u |
| Mid | e | o |
| Low | a | |
| Labial | Coronal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k |
| prenasalized | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᵑɡ | |
| Fricative | β | ð | ɣ | |
| Sibilant | (s) | |||
| Liquid | rhotic | r | ||
| lateral | l | |||
/t/ is realized as[tʃ] before/i/.
/s/ occurs only inloanwords fromTok Pisin, such assikul 'school'.
No consonant clusters or final consonants are allowed in native Vitu words: all syllables have a CV or V structure.Loanwords, however, may have different structures.
Vitu is written in theLatin script. Only between 15% and 25% of speakers of Vitu areliterate in the language, but many more are literate inTok Pisin, thenational language of Papua New Guinea.
| A a | B b | D d | E e | G g | H h | I i | K k | L l | M m |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| /a/ | /ᵐb/ | /ⁿd/ | /e/ | /ᵑɡ/ | /ɣ/ | /i/ | /k/ | /l/ | /m/ |
| N n | Ng ng | O o | P p | R r | S s | T t | U u | V v | Z z |
| /n/ | /ŋ/ | /o/ | /p/ | /r/ | /s/ | /t/ | /u/ | /β/ | /ð/ |
Complexvoice systems so characteristic of Austronesian languages ofTaiwan and thePhilippines undergo significant reduction in most Austronesian languages of EasternIndonesia andOceania. Vitu is unusual in terms of morphology when compared to most otherOceanic languages spoken inMelanesia. It is one of very few Melanesian languages that have apassive voice-marking system.
The usual word order of Vitu issubject–verb–object (SVO).