The Southern Oceanic languages are 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 ...

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 ...

spoken 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 ...

and New Caledonia. It was proposed by Lynch, Ross, and Crowley in 2002 and supported by later studies. They consider it to be a

rather than a language group with a clearly defined internal nested structure.

Classification

Clark (2009) groups the North Vanuatu and Central Vanuatu languages together into a ''North–Central Vanuatu'' (NCV) group and also reconstructs Proto-North–Central Vanuatu, but this is not accepted by

Lynch Lynch may refer to: Places Australia * Lynch Island, South Orkney Islands, Antarctica * Lynch Point, Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica * Lynch's Crater, Queensland, Australia England * River Lynch, Hertfordshire * The Lynch, an island in the River ...

(2018). In addition to the

Reefs – Santa Cruz languages The Reef Islands – Santa Cruz languages (usually shortened to Reefs – Santa Cruz, abbreviated RSC) are a branch of the Oceanic languages comprising the languages of the Santa Cruz Islands and Reef Islands: * Äiwoo (also known as ''Reefs'') ...

and the

Meso-Melanesian languages The Meso-Melanesian languages are a linkage of Oceanic languages spoken in the large Melanesian islands of New Ireland and the Solomon Islands east of New Guinea. Bali is one of the most conservative languages. Composition The languages group ...

of the western

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capit ...

, Geraghty (2017) notes that many Southern Oceanic languages are often lexically and typologically aberrant languages likely with Papuan substrata – particularly the Santo,

Malakula Malakula Island, also spelled Malekula, is the second-largest island in the nation of Vanuatu, formerly the New Hebrides, in Melanesia, a region of the Pacific Ocean. Location Malakula is separated from the islands of Espiritu Santo and Malo by ...

, South Vanuatu, and New Caledonian languages, and perhaps also some

Central Vanuatu languages The Central Vanuatu languages form a linkage of Southern Oceanic languages spoken in central Vanuatu. Languages Clark (2009) Clark (2009) provides the following classification of the Central Vanuatu languages, divided into geographic areas. Outl ...

Ambrym Ambrym is a volcanic island in Malampa Province in the archipelago of Vanuatu. Volcanic activity on the island includes lava lakes in two craters near the summit. Etymology Ambrym (also known as ''Ambrin'', ''"ham rim"'' in the Ranon language ...

and

Efate Efate (french: Éfaté) is an island in the Pacific Ocean which is part of the Shefa Province in Vanuatu. It is also known as Île Vate. Geography It is the most populous (approx. 66,000) island in Vanuatu. Efate's land area of makes it Vanu ...

. Nevertheless, languages in the eastern Solomon Islands, including Guadalcanal, Malaita,

Makira The island of Makira (also known as San Cristobal and San Cristóbal) is the largest island of Makira-Ulawa Province in the Solomon Islands. It is third most populous island after Malaita and Guadalcanal, with a population of 55,126 as of 2020. ...

, and adjacent islands, are much more conservative, and not as lexicaly aberrant as the

Temotu languages The Temotu languages, named after Temotu Province of the Solomon Islands, are a branch of Oceanic languages proposed in Ross & Næss (2007) to unify the Reefs – Santa Cruz languages with Utupua and Vanikoro, each a group of three related langua ...

and languages of the western Solomons.

Languages

Following Clark (2009) and '' Glottolog'' 4.0, four major groups can be delineated, which are North Vanuatu, Central Vanuatu, South Vanuatu, and New Caledonian. All four groups are linkages. * North Vanuatu ** Torres–Banks **

Espiritu Santo Espiritu Santo (, ; ) is the largest island in the nation of Vanuatu, with an area of and a population of around 40,000 according to the 2009 census. Geography The island belongs to the archipelago of the New Hebrides in the Pacific region o ...

Tryon, Darrell. 2010. The languages of Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu. In John Bowden and Nikolaus P. Himmelmann and Malcolm Ross (eds.), ''A journey through Austronesian and Papuan linguistic and cultural space: papers in honour of Andrew K. Pawley'', 283-290. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. **(various others) * Central Vanuatu **

**(various others) * South Vanuatu * New Caledonian

Lynch (1995)

(1995) tentatively grouped the languages as follows: * Banks–Torres family * Northwest Santo family * Southwest Santo family * Sakao * East Santo family * Ambae–Maewo family *Nuclear Southern Oceanic linkage **Central Vanuatu linkage *** Malekula Coastal *** Malekula Interior *** Pentecost *** Ambrym–Paama **Epi–Efate *** Epi *** Shepherds–North Efate **South Efate – Southern Melanesian linkage *** South Efate dialect network ***Southern Melanesian family **** Southern Vanuatu family **** New Caledonian family The non-nuclear branches are subsumed under Northern Vanuatu.

Ross, Pawley, & Osmond (2016)

Ross, Pawley, & Osmond (2016) propose the following internal classification for Southern Oceanic.Ross, Malcolm; Pawley, Andrew; Osmond, Meredith (eds)
''The lexicon of Proto Oceanic: The culture and environment of ancestral Oceanic society''
Volume 5
People: body and mind
2016. Asia-Pacific Linguistics (A-PL) 28. *Southern Oceanic linkage ** North Vanuatu linkage **Nuclear Southern Oceanic linkage *** Central Vanuatu linkage ***

South Vanuatu languages The nine South Vanuatu languages form a family of the Southern Oceanic languages, spoken in Tafea Province ( Tanna, Aneityum, Futuna, Erromango, and Aniwa) of Vanuatu. Languages *Erromango family **Southern: Sie, Sorung† **Northern: Ifo ...

*** Loyalties-New Caledonia languages

References

* Lynch, John, and

Terry Crowley Terrence Michael Crowley (born February 16, 1947) is an American former professional baseball player and coach. He played in Major League Baseball as an outfielder and utility player from through , most notably as a member of the Baltimore Oriol ...

. 2001. ''Languages of Vanuatu: A New Survey and Bibliography''. (Pacific Linguistics, 517.) Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. * Lynch, John, Malcolm Ross &

. 2002. ''The Oceanic languages.'' Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press. *Clark, Ross. 2009. ''*Leo Tuai: A comparative lexical study of North and Central Vanuatu languages.'' Canberra: Pacific Linguistics (Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University). {{Austronesian languages Central–Eastern Oceanic languages

Classification

Languages

Lynch (1995)

Ross, Pawley, & Osmond (2016)

See also

References