Aplow, or ''Valuwa'', is a village located on the eastern part of

Motalava Mota Lava or Motalava is an island of the Banks group, in the north of Vanuatu. It forms a single coral system with the small island of Ra. The 2009 census figures give a population of 1640 inhabitants (Mota Lava + Ra), which amounts to a popu ...

island, in the

Banks Islands The Banks Islands (in Bislama ''Bankis'') are a group of islands in northern Vanuatu. Together with the Torres Islands to their northwest, they make up the northernmost province of Torba. The island group lies about north of Maewo, and include ...

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 no ...

. Located close to it is the island's airport, ''Valua airport''. Aplow also designates the whole district around this village, corresponding to the eastern side of the island; in this sense, Aplow contrasts with ''Mwotlap'', which strictly speaking designates the western half of Motalava island. The area of Aplow used to be home of a communalect (language or dialect) known as

Volow Volow (formerly known as ''Valuwa'' or ''Valuga'') is an Oceanic language variety which used to be spoken in the area of Aplow, in the eastern part of the island of Motalava, in Vanuatu. Name The name ''Volow'' is originally a placename: it c ...

. Volow become extinct in the 1980s, as its speakers

adopted Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from ...

the dominant language

Mwotlap Mwotlap (pronounced ; formerly known as ''Motlav'') is an Oceanic language spoken by about 2,100 people in Vanuatu. The majority of speakers are found on the island of Motalava in the Banks Islands, with smaller communities in the islands of Ra ...

from the western side.

Name

The name ''Aplow'' is the name of the village in

, which is the dominant language spoken today on the island. The same village was originally known as ''Volow'' in the now extinct language of the same name. Finally, the village, as well as the district around it, are sometimes designated as ''Valuwa'' (or wrongly as ''Valua''). this reflects the form of the word in

Mota Mota, MOTA or variations thereof may refer to: Geography * Mota (island), Vanuatu * Mota, Ethiopia, a town * Mota, Gujarat, India, a town * Mota, Ljutomer, Slovenia, a village Music * ''M.O.T.A.'' (album), a 2005 album by Cultura Profética * "M ...

, the language of the neighbouring island which missionaries once used as the contact language in the whole region. All these forms descend from a reconstructed *''Valuwa'' in the Proto-Torres-Banks language, e.g. *''Vaˈluwa'' > . The Mwotlap form incorporates a locative prefix: *''ˌa-Vaˈluwa'' > * > .

Notes

References

* Populated places in Vanuatu Torba Province {{Vanuatu-geo-stub