Vurës language

Vurës (Vureas, Vures) is an Oceanic language spoken in the southern area of Vanua Lava Island, in the Banks Islands of northern Vanuatu, by about 2000 speakers.[1]^:88

Vurës
Vureas
Native to	Vanuatu
Region	Vanua Lava
Native speakers	2,000 (2012)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic Vanuatu North Vanuatu Torres–Banks Vurës
Language codes
ISO 639-3	msn (shared with Mwesen)
Glottolog	vure1239
ELP	Vurës[2]

Vurës shows enough similarities with the neighbouring language Mwesen that the two have sometimes been considered dialects of a single language, sometimes called Mosina (after the name of Mwesen village in the language Mota). However, studies have shown that Mwesen and Vurës have various dissimilarities, e.g. in their vowel systems,[3][4]^:194 in their noun articles,[5] in their pronoun paradigms.[6]

Vurës was described in 2016 by linguist Catriona Malau.[7]

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial- velar	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	k͡pʷ		t̪		k	(ʔ)
	prenasal		ᵐb	ⁿd̪
Nasal		ŋ͡mʷ	m		n	ŋ
Fricative			β		s	ɣ
Trill/Tap					r
Lateral					l
Approximant		w

• /r/ is also heard as a tap [ɾ] in free variation.
• A glottal stop /ʔ/ only rarely occurs in some words.
• /β/ is heard as [p̚] before a voiceless stop.
• /k͡pʷ/ is heard as [k͡p] when preceding another consonant.
• Stop sounds /t̪ k/ are aspirated [t̪ʰ kʰ] before vowels.[7]^:20

Vowels

Vurës has 9 phonemic vowels. These are all short monophthongs /i e ɛ a œ ø y ɔ o/:[3]^:446[4]^:194

Vurës vowels

	Front		Back
	plain	round
Close	i	y	(ʊ)
Close-mid	e	ø	o
Open-mid	ɛ	œ	ɔ
Open	a

• [ʊ] is only a marginal sound that occurs in a small amount of words, mostly borrowings.[7]^:20
• The vowel inventory also includes a diphthong [i​͡a].[3]^:459–460

References

Main reference

• Malau, Catriona (2016). A grammar of Vurës, Vanuatu. Pacific Linguistics, 651. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. ISBN 978-1-5015-0364-1.

Other references

• François, Alexandre (2005), "Unraveling the history of the vowels of seventeen northern Vanuatu languages", Oceanic Linguistics, 44 (2): 443–504, doi:10.1353/ol.2005.0034, S2CID 131668754
• François, Alexandre (2007), "Noun articles in Torres and Banks languages: Conservation and innovation", in Siegel, Jeff; Lynch, John; Eades, Diana (eds.), Language Description, History and Development: Linguistic indulgence in memory of Terry Crowley, Creole Language Library 30, Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 313–326, doi:10.1075/cll.30.30fra
• François, Alexandre (2009), "Verbal aspect and personal pronouns: The history of aorist markers in north Vanuatu", in Pawley, Andrew; Adelaar, Alexander (eds.), Austronesian historical linguistics and culture history: A festschrift for Bob Blust, 601, Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, pp. 179–195
• François, Alexandre (2011), "Social ecology and language history in the northern Vanuatu linkage: A tale of divergence and convergence", 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", International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2012 (214): 85–110, doi:10.1515/ijsl-2012-0022, S2CID 145208588
• François, Alexandre (2016), "The historical morphology of personal pronouns in northern Vanuatu", in Pozdniakov, Konstantin (ed.), Comparatisme et reconstruction : tendances actuelles, Faits de Langues, 47, Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 25–60.

External links

• Vurës—English dictionary, by Catriona Malau.
• Audio recordings in the Vurës language, in open access, by A. François (Pangloss Collection, CNRS).

Notes

1. François (2012).
2. Endangered Languages Project data for Vurës.
3. François (2005).
4. François (2011).
5. François (2007).
6. François (2009), François (2016).
7. Malau (2016).