Dorig language
Dorig (formerly called Wetamut) is an Oceanic language spoken on Gaua island in Vanuatu.
| Dorig | |
|---|---|
| Dōrig | |
| Pronunciation | [ⁿdʊriɣ] |
| Native to | Vanuatu |
| Region | Gaua |
Native speakers | 300 (2012)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | wwo |
| Glottolog | weta1242 |
| ELP | Dorig |
The language’s 300 speakers live mostly in the village of Dorig (IPA: [ⁿdʊˈriɰ]), on the south coast of Gaua. Smaller speaker communities can be found in the villages of Qteon (east coast) and Qtevut (west coast).
Name
The name Dorig, spelled Dōrig, is derived from the name of the village where it is spoken. The term is related to Dōlav (the Dorig name of a village that is called in Lakon as Jōlap [t͡ʃʊlap]), with the -rig and -lav parts meaning "small" and "big" respectively. The element dō is obscure; hence the only term that can be reconstructed for Proto-Torres-Banks is -riɣi.
Phonology
Dorig has 8 phonemic vowels. These include 7 short monophthongs /i ɪ ɛ a ɔ ʊ u/ and one long vowel /aː/.[3]
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i ⟨i⟩ | u ⟨u⟩ |
| Near-close | ɪ ⟨ē⟩ | ʊ ⟨ō⟩ |
| Open-mid | ɛ ⟨e⟩ | ɔ ⟨o⟩ |
| Open | a ⟨a⟩, aː ⟨ā⟩ | |
The phonotactic template for a syllable in Dorig is: /CCVC/ — e.g. /rk͡pʷa/ ‘woman’; /ŋ͡mʷsar/ ‘poor’; /wrɪt/ ‘octopus’. Remarkably, the consonant clusters of these /CCVC/ syllables are not constrained by the Sonority Sequencing Principle.[4]
Grammar
The system of personal pronouns in Dorig contrasts clusivity, and distinguishes four numbers (singular, dual, trial, plural).[5]
Spatial reference is based on a system of geocentric (absolute) directionals, which is typical of Oceanic languages.[6]
References
Bibliography
- 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 (2010), "Phonotactics and the prestopped velar lateral of Hiw: Resolving the ambiguity of a complex segment" (PDF), Phonology, 27 (3): 393–434, doi:10.1017/s0952675710000205
- 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, hdl:1885/29283.
- 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, vol. 47, Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 25–60
External links
- Linguistic map of north Vanuatu, showing range of Dorig on Gaua.
- Audio recordings in Dorig language, in open access, by A. François (source: Pangloss Collection).
- A story in Dorig, with audio recording and translation.