Tanema language

Tanema
Tanema
Tetawo
Native to	Solomon Islands
Region	Vanikoro
Native speakers	1 (2012)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Temotu Vanikoro Tanema; ; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	tnx
Glottolog	tane1237
ELP	Tanema
	Tanema is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Tanema (Tetawo, Tetau) is a nearly extinct language of the island of Vanikoro, in the easternmost province of the Solomon Islands.

Vitality

As of 2012, Tanema is only spoken by one speaker, Lainol Nalo.^[1]^[3] Like its neighbour Lovono, it has been replaced by Teanu, the main language of Vanikoro.

The late Emele Mamuli was a prolific storyteller who could speak fluently the three languages of Vanikoro: Teanu, Lovono and Tanema.^[4] She was one of the last speakers of Tanema.

The language

Some information on the languages of Vanikoro, including Tanema, can be found in François (2009) for the grammar, and François (2021) for the lexicon.^[5]

Notes

^ ^a ^b Homepage of the linguist A. François (CNRS).
^ Source: Maps of Vanikoro (languages, place names).
^ “The Mystery of the Sinking South Pacific Islands” — Part 2: A Language's Lone Survivor (article in Der Spiegel, 15/06/2012).
^ Photograph of Emele Mamuli (2005).
^ See also François (2022) for a general presentation.

References

François, Alexandre (2009), "The languages of Vanikoro: Three lexicons and one grammar" (PDF), in Evans, Bethwyn (ed.), Discovering history through language: Papers in honour of Malcolm Ross, Pacific Linguistics 605, Canberra: Australian National University, pp. 103–126
—— (2021). Online Teanu–English dictionary, with lexical data in Lovono and Tanema. Paris, CNRS.
—— (2022). "Presentation of the Tanema language, and audio archive". Pangloss Collection. Paris: CNRS. Retrieved 26 September 2022.