Northeast Malakula language

For Wala of the Solomon Islands, see Langalanga language.

Northeast Malakula
Uripiv-Wala-Rano-Atchin
Native to	Vanuatu
Region	Malakula
Native speakers	9,000 (2001)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic North-Central Vanuatu Central Vanuatu Malakula Malakula Coastal Northeast Malakula
Language codes
ISO 639-3	upv
Glottolog	urip1239
Northeast Malakula is not endangered according to the classification system of the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Northeast Malakula, or Uripiv-Wala-Rano-Atchin, is a dialect chain spoken on the islands of Uripiv, Wala, Rano, and Atchin and on the mainland opposite to these islands. Uripiv-Wala-Rano-Atchin is spoken today by about 9,000 people. Literacy rate of its speakers in their own language is 10–30%.

Uripiv-Wala-Rano-Atchin forms a dialect chain. The Uripiv dialect is the most southerly of these and has 85% of its words in common with Atchin, the most northerly dialect. Uripiv is spoken on the north-east coast of Malakula.

The Uripiv dialect is one of the few documented languages that use the rare bilabial trill, a feature that is not found in the Atchin dialect.

Phonology

Consonants

Uripiv consonants^[2]

		Labial		Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
		plain	lab.
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	pʷ	t	tʃ	k
	prenasal	ᵐb	ᵐbʷ	ⁿd		ᵑɡ
Fricative		β		s
Nasal		m	mʷ	n		ŋ
Tap				ɾ
Trill	voiced			r
	prenasal	ᵐʙ		(ⁿᵈr)
Lateral				l
Approximant		w			j

• The sound /ⁿᵈr/ is considered rare, and its phonemic status is unclear.^[2]

Atchin consonants^[3]

		Labial		Alveolar	Velar
		plain	lab.
Plosive	voiceless	p	pʷ	t	k
	prenasal	ᵐb	ᵐbʷ
Affricate				ts
Fricative		β		s
Nasal		m	mʷ	n	ŋ
Trill				r
Lateral				l
Approximant		w

• Some speakers may pronounce sounds /s, ts/ as [ʃ, tʃ] in free variation.^[3]

Vowels

Uripiv vowels^[2]

	Front		Central	Back
Close	i			u
Mid	e	ø		o
Open			a

Atchin vowels^[3]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ʉ	u
Close-mid	e		o
Open-mid	œ
Open		a

• Sounds /e, o, œ/ are heard as [ɛ, ɔ, ə] in unstressed closed-syllable position.^[3]

References

1. Northeast Malakula at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Lynch, John (2020). The Phonological History of Uripiv, an Eastern Malakula Language. Language & Linguistics in Melanesia 38. pp. 10–37.
3. Duhamel, Marie (2010). The Noun Phrase of Atchin: A language of Malakula Vanuatu (PDF). University of Auckland.

Further reading

• Duhamel, Marie (2015) Ethnolinguistic vitality of the language of Atchin, central Vanuatu: A survey of the language's status, institutional support and demography. Fourth International Workshop on the Sociolinguistics of Language Endangerment. Payap University.