Koro language (Vanuatu)

Koro
Native to	Vanuatu
Region	Gaua
Native speakers	250 (2012)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic Vanuatu North Vanuatu Torres–Banks Koro; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	krf
Glottolog	koro1318
ELP	Koro (Vanuatu)[2]

Koro is an Oceanic language spoken on Gaua island in Vanuatu. Its 280 speakers live in the village of Koro, on the south coast of Gaua.[3]

Koro is a distinct language from its immediate neighbours, Dorig (300 sp.) and Olrat (4 sp.).[4]

Phonology

Koro has 8 phonemic vowels. These include 7 monophthongs /i ɪ ɛ a ɔ ʊ u/ and one diphthong /ɛ͡a/.[5]

The system of personal pronouns in Koro contrasts clusivity, and distinguishes four numbers (singular, dual, trial, plural).[6]

Spatial reference in Koro is based on a system of geocentric (absolute) directionals, which is typical of Oceanic languages.[7]

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
François, Alexandre (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.
François, Alexandre (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
François, Alexandre (2015). "The ins and outs of up and down: 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.
François, Alexandre (2016), "The historical morphology of personal pronouns in northern Vanuatu" (PDF), in Pozdniakov, Konstantin (ed.), Comparatisme et reconstruction : tendances actuelles, Faits de Langues, 47, Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 25–60

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