The Torres–Banks languages form a
linkage
Linkage may refer to:
* ''Linkage'' (album), by J-pop singer Mami Kawada, released in 2010
*Linkage (graph theory), the maximum min-degree of any of its subgraphs
*Linkage (horse), an American Thoroughbred racehorse
* Linkage (hierarchical cluster ...
of
Southern Oceanic languages spoken in the
Torres Islands
The Torres Islands are in the Torba Province of the country of Vanuatu, and is that country’s the northernmost island group. The chain of islands that make up this micro-archipelago straddles the broader cultural boundary between Island Melane ...
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–Banks languages;
*
François (2015): Systems of geocentric space directionals, and their historical development;
*
François (2016): Historical morphology of personal pronouns.
François (2012) is a
sociolinguistic study of the area.
Genealogical structure of the Torres–Banks linkage
The internal structure of the Torres–Banks linkage was assessed based on the
Comparative method, and presented in the framework of
historical glottometry (
François 2014,
2017
File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...
;
Kalyan & François 2018).
Kalyan & François (2018: 81) identified the following best-supported subgroups (in decreasing order of genealogical closeness):
* Mwotlap – Volow
* Hiw – Lo-Toga
* Vurës – Mwesen
* Lemerig – Vera'a
* Koro – Olrat – Lakon
* Dorig – Koro – Olrat – Lakon
* Olrat – Lakon
* Lehali – Löyöp – Mwotlap – Volow
* 15 Banks languages together
(Lehali – Löyöp – Mwotlap – Volow – Lemerig – Vera'a – Vurës – Mwesen – Mota – Nume – Dorig – Koro – Olrat – Lakon – Mwerlap)
It is possible that the strict common ancestor of any two members of the Torres–Banks linkage is
Proto-Oceanic
Proto-Oceanic (abbr. ''POc'') is a proto-language that historical linguists since Otto Dempwolff have reconstructed as the hypothetical common ancestor of the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian language family. Proto-Oceanic is a descendant ...
itself.
Evidence of this is found in the irregular preservation of final consonants in
Lakon (via a now-lost
paragogic
Paragoge (; from grc-gre, παραγωγή ''additional'': παρα- prefix ''para-'' 'extra', ἀγωγή ''agogē'' 'bringing in') is the addition of a sound to the end of a word. Often caused by nativization, it is a type of epenthesis, mos ...
vowel) in some words, consonants which were lost in most other languages.
[ François (2005: 479-481).][ François (2011).]
Proto-language
The
common ancestor of all Torres-Banks languages is called
Proto-Torres–Banks, viewed here as a mutually-intelligible chain of dialects within the Torres and Banks islands.
Notes
References
*
Codrington, Robert Henry (1885). ''The Melanesian Languages''. Oxford: Clarendon Press
full text from the Internet Archive.
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External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:North Vanuatu Languages
Languages of Vanuatu
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