Lakon is an Oceanic language, spoken on the west coast of Gaua island in

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 ...

Names

The language name ''Lakon'' refers originally to the area where it is spoken ‒ namely Lakona Bay, corresponding to the west coast of Gaua. The alternative name ''Lakona'' is from the Mota language. These names are derived from a Proto-Torres-Banks form *''laᵑgona'', of unknown meaning. Lakon had four dialects, named Qatareu (''Qätärew'' ), Vure (''Vurē'' ), Toglatareu, and Togla.

Phonology

Consonants

Lakon has 16

phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...

consonants. François (2022). The glottal stop only occurs before vowels in syllable-initial position. While non-phonemic, it is sometimes noted in the orthography, using a mark.

Vowels

Lakon has 16

vowels. These include 8 short /i ɪ ɛ æ a ɔ ʊ u/ and 8 long vowels /iː ɪː ɛː æː aː ɔː ʊː uː/. Historically, the phonemicisation of vowel length originates in the

compensatory lengthening Compensatory lengthening in phonology and historical linguistics is the lengthening of a vowel sound that happens upon the loss of a following consonant, usually in the syllable coda, or of a vowel in an adjacent syllable. Lengthening triggered ...

of short vowels when the

alveolar trill The voiced alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. ...

was lost syllable-finally.

Grammar

The system of

personal pronoun Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...

s in Lakon contrasts

clusivity In linguistics, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between ''inclusive'' and ''exclusive'' first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called ''inclusive " we"'' and ''exclusive "we"''. Inclusive "we" specifically includes the addressee ...

, and distinguishes four

numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

(singular, dual,

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of Party (law), parties to a :wikt:dispute, dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence (law), evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to Adjudication, adjudicate claims or d ...

, plural). Spatial reference in Lakon is based on a system of geocentric (

absolute Absolute may refer to: Companies * Absolute Entertainment, a video game publisher * Absolute Radio, (formerly Virgin Radio), independent national radio station in the UK * Absolute Software Corporation, specializes in security and data risk manage ...

) directionals, which is typical of

Oceanic languages The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages. The area occupied by speakers of these languages includes Polynesia, as well as much of Melanesia and Micronesia. Though covering a vast area, Oceanic languages ...

. François (2015).

References

Bibliography

* * . * * * *

External links

Portions of the Book of Common Prayer
in Lakon from

Project Canterbury Project Canterbury (sometimes abbreviated as PC) is an online archive of material related to the history of Anglicanism. It was founded by Richard Mammana, Jr. in 1999 with a grant from Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, and is ho ...

A book of traditional stories, monolingual in Lakon language
(site of linguist A. François)

* ttps://pangloss.cnrs.fr/corpus/Lakon?lang=en&mode=pro&seeMore=false Audio recordings in the Lakon language in open access, by A. François (source: ''

Pangloss Collection The Pangloss Collection is a digital library whose objective is to store and facilitate access to audio recordings in endangered languages of the world. Developed by the LACITO centre of CNRS in Paris, the collection provides free online access ...

''). *

Paradisec The Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC) is a cross-institutional project that supports work on endangered languages and cultures of the Pacific and the region around Australia. They digitise reel-to ...

has collections with Lakon language materials including

Arthur Capell Arthur Capell (28 March 1902 – 10 August 1986) was an Australian linguist, who made major contributions to the study of Australian languages, Austronesian languages and Papuan languages. Early life Capell was born in Newtown, New South Wales ...

's fieldnotes
AC2
an
Digitised microfilm images from Pacific Manuscripts Bureau (PAMBU)
{{Austronesian languages Languages of Vanuatu Banks–Torres languages Torba Province Vulnerable languages