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Lehali
Lehali (previously known as ''Teqel'') is an Oceanic language spoken by about 200 people, on the west coast of Ureparapara Island in Vanuatu.List of Banks islands languages It is distinct from Löyöp, the language spoken on the east coast of the same island. Name The language is named after the village where it is spoken, natively referred to as ''Loli'' . The name ''Lehali'' does not have any etymological value, other than being a corruption of the native name.Phonology Lehali phonemically contrasts 16 |
Ureparapara
Ureparapara (also known as ''Parapara'' for short; once known as ''Bligh Island'') is the third largest island in the Banks group of northern Vanuatu, after Gaua and Vanua Lava. The climate on the island is humid tropical. The average annual rainfall exceeds 4000 mm. Ureparapara is subject to frequent earthquakes and cyclones. Geography Ureparapara island is an old volcanic cone that has been breached by the sea on its east coast. The resulting bay is known as ''Divers' Bay'', and as ''Löyöp'' in the local language of the same name. Apart from this indentation, the island is circular in shape, with a diameter of . The land area is . History The first recorded European who arrived to Ureparapara was the Spanish explorer Pedro Fernández de Quirós on 15 June 1606. He first named the island ''Pilar de Zaragoza''; however, later on, it is charted as ''Nuestra Señora de Montserrate'' both by him and his chaplain Fray Martin de Munilla. In 1789, the island was rediscove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Torres–Banks Languages
The Torres–Banks languages form a linkage of Southern Oceanic languages spoken in the Torres Islands and Banks Islands of northern Vanuatu. Languages François (2011) recognizes 17 languages spoken by 9,400 people in 50 villages, including 16 living (3 of which are moribund) and one extinct language. François (2011). The 17 languages, ranked from northwest to southeast, are: : Comparative studies A. François has published several studies comparing various features of the Torres–Banks languages: * François (2005): Inventories of vowel systems, and their historical development; * François (2007): Systems of noun articles, and their historical development; * François (2009): How several languages grammaticalized a set of light personal pronouns into markers for “aorist” aspect; * François (2011): How Torres–Banks languages tend to show structural isomorphism, yet lexical diversity; * François (2013): Etymological reconstruction of spiritual terms in Torres–B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Vanuatu Languages
The North Vanuatu languages form a Linkage (linguistics), linkage of Southern Oceanic languages spoken in northern Vanuatu. Languages Clark (2009) Clark (2009) provides the following classification of the North Vanuatu languages, divided into two main geographic areas (Torres–Banks–Maewo–Ambae–Pentecost and Espiritu Santo, Santo). Outlier (aberrant) languages identified by Clark (2009) are in ''italics''.The language names used by Clark have often been superseded by other names; in that case, the glottonym used by Clark is indicated in brackets. *North Vanuatu **Northern (Torres–Banks–Maewo–Ambae–Pentecost) ***Torres–Banks languages ****Torres Islands: Hiw language, Hiw, Lo-Toga language, Lo-Toga (“Loh”) ****Banks Islands: Lehali language, Lehali–Löyöp language, Löyöp (“Ureparapara”), Mwotlap language, Mwotlap–Volow language, Volow (“Mwotlav”), Lemerig language, Lemerig–Vera'a language, Vera’a (“Vera'a”), Vurës language, Vurës–Mwe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Approximant Consonant
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no turbulence. This class is composed of sounds like (as in ''rest'') and semivowels like and (as in ''yes'' and ''west'', respectively), as well as lateral approximants like (as in ''less''). Terminology Before Peter Ladefoged coined the term "approximant" in the 1960s, the terms "frictionless continuant" and "semivowel" were used to refer to non-lateral approximants. In phonology, "approximant" is also a distinctive feature that encompasses all sonorants except nasals, including vowels, taps and trills. Semivowels Some approximants resemble vowels in acoustic and articulatory properties and the terms ''semivowel'' and ''glide'' are often used for these non-syllabic vowel-like segme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nasalization
In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is . In the International Phonetic Alphabet, nasalization is indicated by printing a tilde diacritic above the symbol for the sound to be nasalized: is the nasalized equivalent of , and is the nasalized equivalent of . A subscript diacritic , called an ogonek or ''nosinė'', is sometimes seen, especially when the vowel bears tone marks that would interfere with the superscript tilde. For example, are more legible in most fonts than . Nasal vowels Many languages have nasal vowels to different degrees, but only a minority of world languages around the world have nasal vowels as contrasting phonemes. That is the case, among others, of French, Portuguese, Hindustani, Nepali, Breton, Gheg Albanian, Hmong, Hokkien, Yoruba, and Cherokee. Those nasal vowels con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stop Consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips (, ), or glottis (). Plosives contrast with nasals, where the vocal tract is blocked but airflow continues through the nose, as in and , and with fricatives, where partial occlusion impedes but does not block airflow in the vocal tract. Terminology The terms ''stop, occlusive,'' and ''plosive'' are often used interchangeably. Linguists who distinguish them may not agree on the distinction being made. The terms refer to different features of the consonant. "Stop" refers to the airflow that is stopped. "Occlusive" refers to the articulation, which occludes (blocks) the vocal tract. "Plosive" refers to the release burst (plosion) of the consonant. Some object to the use of "plosive" for inaudibly released stops, which may then instead be ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voicelessness
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies voicing and that voicelessness is the lack of phonation. The International Phonetic Alphabet has distinct letters for many voiceless and modally voiced pairs of consonants (the obstruents), such as . Also, there are diacritics for voicelessness, and , which is used for letters with a descender. Diacritics are typically used with letters for prototypically voiced sounds, such as vowels and sonorant consonants: . In Russian use of the IPA, the voicing diacritic may be turned for voicelessness, e.g. . Voiceless vowels and other sonorants Sonorants are sounds such as vowels and nasals that are voiced in most of the world's languages. However, in some languages sonorants may be voiceless, usually allophonically. For example, the Japanese w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prenasalized Consonant
Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent (or occasionally a non-nasal sonorant such as ) that behave phonologically like single consonants. The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rather than clusters as in English ''finger'' or ''member'', lies in their behaviour; however, there may also be phonetic correlates which distinguish prenasalized consonants from clusters. Because of the additional difficulty in both articulation and timing, prenasalized fricatives and sonorants are not as common as prenasalized stops or affricates, and the presence of the former implies the latter. In most languages, when a prenasalized consonant is described as "voiceless", it is only the oral portion that is voiceless, and the nasal portion is modally voiced. Thus, a language may have "voiced" and "voiceless" . However, in some Southern Min (including Taiwanese) dialects, voiced consonants are preceded by voiceless prenasalization: . Yeyi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fricative Consonant
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in the case of German (the final consonant of ''Bach''); or the side of the tongue against the molars, in the case of Welsh (appearing twice in the name ''Llanelli''). This turbulent airflow is called frication. A particular subset of fricatives are the sibilants. When forming a sibilant, one still is forcing air through a narrow channel, but in addition, the tongue is curled lengthwise to direct the air over the edge of the teeth. English , , , and are examples of sibilants. The usage of two other terms is less standardized: "Spirant" is an older term for fricatives used by some American and European phoneticians and phonologists. "Strident" could mean just "sibilant", but some authors include also labiodental and uvular fricatives in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vanuatu
Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east of New Guinea, southeast of the Solomon Islands, and west of Fiji. Vanuatu was first inhabited by Melanesian people. The first Europeans to visit the islands were a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Fernandes de Queirós, who arrived on the largest island, Espíritu Santo, in 1606. Queirós claimed the archipelago for Spain, as part of the colonial Spanish East Indies, and named it . In the 1880s, France and the United Kingdom claimed parts of the archipelago, and in 1906, they agreed on a framework for jointly managing the archipelago as the New Hebrides through an Anglo-French condominium. An independence movement arose in the 1970s, and the Republic of Vanuatu was fou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monophthong
A monophthong ( ; , ) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with diphthongs, where the vowel quality changes within the same syllable, and hiatus, where two vowels are next to each other in different syllables. A vowel sound whose quality does not change over the duration of the vowel is called a pure vowel. Sound changes The conversions of monophthongs to diphthongs (diphthongization), and of diphthongs to monophthongs (monophthongization), are major elements of language change and are likely the cause of further changes. In some languages, due to monophthongization, graphemes that originally represented diphthongs now represent monophthongs. See also * Diphthong, also known as a vowel cluster * Vowel hiatus * Index of phonetics articles * Table of vowels * Semivowel * Triphthong * Vowel * Vowel breaking Refe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glottal Consonant
Glottal consonants are consonants using the glottis as their primary articulation. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the glottal fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have, while some do not consider them to be consonants at all. However, glottal consonants behave as typical consonants in many languages. For example, in Literary Arabic, most words are formed from a root ''C-C-C'' consisting of three consonants, which are inserted into templates such as or . The glottal consonants and can occupy any of the three root consonant slots, just like "normal" consonants such as or . The glottal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet are as follows: Characteristics In many languages, the "fricatives" are not true fricatives. This is a historical usage of the word. They instead represent transitional states of the glottis ( phonation) without a specific place of articulation, and may behave as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |