Erromangan
Encyclopedia
Erromangan or Sye is the primary language spoken on the island Erromango
in the Tafea region of the Vanuatu
islands. The other Erromanga languages are either moribund or extinct. Although the island is quite large (887 km²), the total number of speakers of Erromango is estimated at around 1900.
counted six speakers of Ura in the mid-1990s. The South Vanuatu languages
comprises these four languages.
Erromango Island was once much more diverse linguistically. In the nineteenth century a massive depopulation took place and the languages were realigned. Terry Crowley
states that there would have been three different languages prior to European contact.
(1889), whose notes, which he took on the island, were published posthumously. Capell
produced a description of the language in the 1920s on the basis of the same materials that were used before by Ray
, another scholar. This sketch was never published but it is referred to in detail, however, in unpublished correspondence dated 1927 from Dempwolff to Ray, so he obviously had copies passed on to others.
John Lynch
gathered new material from speakers of Erromangan in the 1960s and 1970s. A description combining the resources of both his and Capell’s work was felt to be feasible and a detailed grammatical sketch was published by Lynch and Capell. Capell’s description bases on translated sources, while Lynch’s notes base on the spoken language. They published in 1983 and made clear that their work had to be regarded as provisional and to be supplemented.
While the pre-contact population of the island has been estimated at around 6.000 people³, this number dropped to 400 by 1931. Entire villages became unviable through loss of population and people were apparently constantly building and reconstituting new villages, larger than the old ones and on a different place on the island. This huge demographic change took place in recent historical times. Thus, it is not too surprising that there is relatively little dialectal diversity.
Erromangans will point out quickly the differences in the language of the people from Potnarvin and Dillon’s Bay but for an outsider these are very small. There are just some differences in very low-frequency lexical items.
.
The phonemes are simple but the phonotactics
of Sye allow a wide range of consonant clusters. They stand mostly in the middle of words and can occur at initial and end position, too.
is also typical. Less productive are suffixes.
is attested in Sye, but to a much smaller extent than it is in other Oceanic languages with regard to productivity.
There is, however, a considerable amount of inflectional affixation in the nominal, prepositional and verbal morphology.
| Kem-antehep || nandu || [mei] ||
|-
| 2SG:PRES-MR:sit || ACC.SG || who ||
|}
| Kem-antehep || ndal || [mei-me] ||
|-
| 2SG:PRES-MR:sit || ACC.PL || who-PL ||
|}
.
Because this aspect is rather complex the example, which shows the prefixation of /tovop/ is preceded by a brief overview of the prefix order:
SUBJECT (PRIOR PAST) (ITERATIVE) (NEGATIVE) (EM-) STEM.
| koh || koku-tovop ||
|-
| 1NONSG.INCL|| 1DL.INCL:RECPAST-BR:laugh ||
|}
| koh || koli-tovop ||
|-
| 1NONSG.INCL|| 1PL.INCL:RECPAST-BR:laugh ||
|}
Alienable possession is marked on phrase level; inalienable possession would be indicated on nouns.
construction. A verb that has the same subject as the preceding verb is marked with a special reduced set of prefixes which replace the full set of subject prefixes.
In the first of the following three examples just the verb /kamlitouri/ receives full inflection. The following verbs /mlitantvi/ (‘and we crossed’), /mlisac/ (‘and we went up’) and /mlitelwogi/ (‘and we went past’) all carry echo subject markers. The second and the third example follow the same structure, however, in the third example the concurrence of the two events of departing and arriving is hard to grasp for non Erromango speakers.
on nouns is another important feature of the nominal morphology of Sye. The following examples describe three of the noun premodifiers of Sye: hai ‘indefinite’, ovon ‘plural’ and ndve ‘how much?, how many’. Square brackets surround the noun phrase being illustrated.
Accompanying adjectives are also marked for number.
which have root forms that are invariant. Sye shares this pattern with the languages of Central Vanuatu, though the patterns of these languages are different in some other respects.
constructions for a variety of alienable categories, such as food and drink possession
. These forms are typical for Oceanic languages. But Sye has separate constructions which are typically associated with the expression of alienable and inalienable
possession.
Erromango
Erromango is the largest island in Tafea Province, the southernmost province of Vanuatu. Its highest point is Mount Santop, at 886 m. Its largest villages are Port Narvin and Dillons Bay . The former main village was Ipota...
in the Tafea region of the Vanuatu
Vanuatu
Vanuatu , officially the Republic of Vanuatu , is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and southeast of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea.Vanuatu was...
islands. The other Erromanga languages are either moribund or extinct. Although the island is quite large (887 km²), the total number of speakers of Erromango is estimated at around 1900.
Linguistic Situation
Sye is close to being the only language on Erromango. There were once four—Sye, Sorung, Ura and Utaha—but the latter three are extinct apart from a handful of recently discovered Ura speakers. Terry CrowleyTerry Crowley
Terrence Michael Crowley is a former Major League Baseball player who now serves as the interim bullpen coach for the Baltimore Orioles.-Player career:...
counted six speakers of Ura in the mid-1990s. The South Vanuatu languages
South Vanuatu languages
-Languages:*Erromanga: Sie, Sorung , Ifo , Ura *Anejom–Tanna**Aneityum**Tanna:***Kwamera...
comprises these four languages.
Erromango Island was once much more diverse linguistically. In the nineteenth century a massive depopulation took place and the languages were realigned. Terry Crowley
Terry Crowley
Terrence Michael Crowley is a former Major League Baseball player who now serves as the interim bullpen coach for the Baltimore Orioles.-Player career:...
states that there would have been three different languages prior to European contact.
Work on the Language
The earliest published account of Erromangan languages is GordonGeorge N. Gordon
George N. Gordon was a Protestant Canadian missionary to the Pacific Islands. Due to the murder of he and his wife, they were considered to be martyrs of modern times by many....
(1889), whose notes, which he took on the island, were published posthumously. Capell
Arthur Capell
Arthur Capell was an Australian linguist, who made major contributions to the study of Australian languages, Austronesian languages and Papuan languages.-Life:...
produced a description of the language in the 1920s on the basis of the same materials that were used before by Ray
Ray (surname)
Ray is a common surname in India, and in many English-speaking countries.In India, it is an anglicized version of Rai Chowdhary or Roy Chowdhary, also written as Roy...
, another scholar. This sketch was never published but it is referred to in detail, however, in unpublished correspondence dated 1927 from Dempwolff to Ray, so he obviously had copies passed on to others.
John Lynch
John Lynch (linguist)
John Lynch, born 8 July 1946, in Sydney, Australia, is a linguist specializing in Oceanic languages. He is an emeritus professor of Pacific Languages and the former Director of the Pacific Languages Unit at the University of the South Pacific in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Prior to moving to Vanuatu, he...
gathered new material from speakers of Erromangan in the 1960s and 1970s. A description combining the resources of both his and Capell’s work was felt to be feasible and a detailed grammatical sketch was published by Lynch and Capell. Capell’s description bases on translated sources, while Lynch’s notes base on the spoken language. They published in 1983 and made clear that their work had to be regarded as provisional and to be supplemented.
Dialects
The Erromangan language today is dialectically fairly homogeneous. There is very little difference spoken on the coast of the island.While the pre-contact population of the island has been estimated at around 6.000 people³, this number dropped to 400 by 1931. Entire villages became unviable through loss of population and people were apparently constantly building and reconstituting new villages, larger than the old ones and on a different place on the island. This huge demographic change took place in recent historical times. Thus, it is not too surprising that there is relatively little dialectal diversity.
Erromangans will point out quickly the differences in the language of the people from Potnarvin and Dillon’s Bay but for an outsider these are very small. There are just some differences in very low-frequency lexical items.
Consonants
Just /s/ and /r/ underlie allophonic variations.| Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Velar | Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|
| Stop Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
p | t | k | |
| Fricative | v | s | ɣ | h |
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ŋ | |
| Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
l | |||
| Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... |
r | |||
| Glide Semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:... |
(w) | y | (w) |
Vowels
The main difference between the Southern Vanuatu vowel systems lies in the status of the mid central vowel. This vowel is not present in Anejom, while it is in the Tanna languages. In Erromango, however, while there is evidence for an underlying contrastive schwa, it does not contrast at the surface level of representation.Morphology
Other than languages from the North Central Vanuatu subgroup the languages of the Southern Vanuatu subgroup have a rather complex morphologyMorphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
.
The phonemes are simple but the phonotactics
Phonotactics
Phonotactics is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes...
of Sye allow a wide range of consonant clusters. They stand mostly in the middle of words and can occur at initial and end position, too.
-
- /nentrap/ [nendraph] ‘hibiscus’
- /retpon/ [retpon] ‘his wife’
- /navwanr/ [navwand] ‘bubble’
- /itsoηku/ [it∫soηku] ‘whole’
Word classes
Sye is typological fairly typical for an Oceanic language with regard to word classes. Both number and type of class that are needed are normal as well as the extent of multifunctionality. The productive use of prefixes and compoundingCompounding
Compounding is the mixing of drugs by a compounding pharmacist to fit the unique needs of a patient...
is also typical. Less productive are suffixes.
Reduplication
ReduplicationReduplication
Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
is attested in Sye, but to a much smaller extent than it is in other Oceanic languages with regard to productivity.
-
- isut ‘far away’ > isutisut ‘very far away’
- metuv ‘softly’ > metuvmetuv ‘very softly’
- omol ‘fall’ > omolomol ‘fall all over’
- potvon ‘short’ > potvonpotvon ‘very short’
There is, however, a considerable amount of inflectional affixation in the nominal, prepositional and verbal morphology.
Inflection
Inflectional morphology with Sye noun phrases is restricted to the marking of number and some types of possession. In the example shown below, the suffix /-me/ is used to indicate the plural form of ‘who’.-
- {| border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" style="border-collapse:collapse;"
| Kem-antehep || nandu || [mei] ||
|-
| 2SG:PRES-MR:sit || ACC.SG || who ||
|}
-
- ‘Who (singular) are you sitting with?’
-
- {| border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" style="border-collapse:collapse;"
| Kem-antehep || ndal || [mei-me] ||
|-
| 2SG:PRES-MR:sit || ACC.PL || who-PL ||
|}
-
- ‘Who (plural) are you sitting with?’
Affixation
Verbs are obligatorily marked by prefixes that express a wide range of subject categories and a number of orders of optional prefixes, which appear between the prefixes and the stemWord stem
In linguistics, a stem is a part of a word. The term is used with slightly different meanings.In one usage, a stem is a form to which affixes can be attached. Thus, in this usage, the English word friendships contains the stem friend, to which the derivational suffix -ship is attached to form a new...
.
Because this aspect is rather complex the example, which shows the prefixation of /tovop/ is preceded by a brief overview of the prefix order:
SUBJECT (PRIOR PAST) (ITERATIVE) (NEGATIVE) (EM-) STEM.
-
- {| border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" style="border-collapse:collapse;"
| koh || koku-tovop ||
|-
| 1NONSG.INCL|| 1DL.INCL:RECPAST-BR:laugh ||
|}
-
- ‘we (both) laughed’
-
- {| border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" style="border-collapse:collapse;"
| koh || koli-tovop ||
|-
| 1NONSG.INCL|| 1PL.INCL:RECPAST-BR:laugh ||
|}
-
- ‘we (all) laughed’
Alienable possession is marked on phrase level; inalienable possession would be indicated on nouns.
Syntax
Sye is a classical SVO language in that it has postmodifying adjectives as well prepositions within the noun phrase. The fairly large set of prepositions makes it unusual. The absence of the widespread patterns of serial verbs makes Sye different from other Oceanic languages.Echo-Subject Construction
Lacking serial verbs, Sye – along with the other languages of the Southern Vanuatu subgroup – has what we can refer to as an echo subjectEcho subject
An echo subject is a verb that has the same subject as the preceding verb. In some languages, such as Erromangan, it is commonly marked with a special reduced set of prefixes which replace the full set of subject prefixes....
construction. A verb that has the same subject as the preceding verb is marked with a special reduced set of prefixes which replace the full set of subject prefixes.
In the first of the following three examples just the verb /kamlitouri/ receives full inflection. The following verbs /mlitantvi/ (‘and we crossed’), /mlisac/ (‘and we went up’) and /mlitelwogi/ (‘and we went past’) all carry echo subject markers. The second and the third example follow the same structure, however, in the third example the concurrence of the two events of departing and arriving is hard to grasp for non Erromango speakers.
| Kamli-tour-i | ovon | kuri | mli-tantvi | nu | mli-sac | mli-telwog-i | ovon | nenduc. | |
| 1PL.EXCL:DISTPAST-BR:lead-CONST | PL | dog | PL:ES-BR:cross | river | PL:ES-ascend | PL:ES-BR:go.past-CONST | PL | garden |
- ‘We led the dogs and crossed the river and went up past the gardens.’
| Misi Ravosen | yi-vai | m-hac | Unpogkor | mute( |
yuwi | nandu. | |
| missionary Robertson | 3SG:DISTPAST-BR:take | SG:ES-go.up | Unpogkor | PL:ES-BR:stay | there | together |
- ‘The missionary Robertson took him up to Unpogkor and they stayed there together.’
| Y-owi | nur | Vila | m-tolki | eni-wi. | |
| 3SG:DISTPAST-BR:leave | place | Vila | SG:ES-BR:return | POSS:3SG-TOP |
- ‘(S)he left Vila and (thereby) returned home.’
Number
The near categorical marking of numberNumber
A number is a mathematical object used to count and measure. In mathematics, the definition of number has been extended over the years to include such numbers as zero, negative numbers, rational numbers, irrational numbers, and complex numbers....
on nouns is another important feature of the nominal morphology of Sye. The following examples describe three of the noun premodifiers of Sye: hai ‘indefinite’, ovon ‘plural’ and ndve ‘how much?, how many’. Square brackets surround the noun phrase being illustrated.
| Kandvi ( |
[hai | nei]. | |
| 2SG:FUT-MR:cut-CONST | INDEF | stick |
- ‘You will cut a stick.’
| Kole-nompi | [ovon syame | iyih]. | |
| 1PL:INCL:FUT-MR:do | PL | things this |
- ‘You will cut a stick.’
| Koc-vai | [ndve | nvat]? | |
| 2SG:RECPAST-BR:get | how.many | stone |
- ‘How many stones did you get?’
Accompanying adjectives are also marked for number.
Subject Markers
Subjects are marked by verbal prefixes, while objects are indicated through verbal suffixes. Both are common in Oceanic languages. There is a huge number of distinct inflectional sets of subject markers on verbs expressing a variety of tense-aspect-mood categories. Not only is this an unusually large number of inflectional categories, but many of these categories are discontinuously marked by combinations of morphotactically separate prefixes for which the constituent forms do not always have definable meanings of their own.Verb Morphology
A complex scheme of root-initial mutation is a salient feature of the verb morphology of Erromangan languages in general. Different root forms are determined by the nature of the preceding morphological environment. This stands in typological contrast to the other Central Vanuatu languagesCentral Vanuatu languages
The languages of the Central Vanuatu family belong to the Nuclear Southern Oceanic language family. There are half a dozen languages, all spoken in the province of Shefa, central Vanuatu, on the islands of Epi, Éfaté, and the many small islands of the Shepherds Group.The primary division is between...
which have root forms that are invariant. Sye shares this pattern with the languages of Central Vanuatu, though the patterns of these languages are different in some other respects.
Possession
A characteristic of Sye is its lack of separately marked possessivePossession (linguistics)
Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other ....
constructions for a variety of alienable categories, such as food and drink possession
Possession (linguistics)
Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other ....
. These forms are typical for Oceanic languages. But Sye has separate constructions which are typically associated with the expression of alienable and inalienable
InAlienable
InAlienable is a 2008 science fiction horror film written and produced by Walter Koenig, and directed by Robert Dyke.-Plot:Dr. Eric Norris remains wracked with guilt after a terrible tragedy that cost him his family, and when he learns that an alien parasite is not only growing inside him but...
possession.
Abbreviations used
- ACC.PL: plural accompanitive
- ACC.SG: singular accompanitive
- BR: basic root
- CONST: construct suffix
- DISTPAST: distant past
- DL: dualDualDual may refer to:* Dual , a notion of paired concepts that mirror one another** Dual , a formalization of mathematical duality** . . ...
- ES: echo subjectEcho subjectAn echo subject is a verb that has the same subject as the preceding verb. In some languages, such as Erromangan, it is commonly marked with a special reduced set of prefixes which replace the full set of subject prefixes....
- EXCL: exclusive
- FUT: future
- INCL: inclusive
- INDEF: indefinite
- MR: modified root
- NONSG: non-singular
- PL: plural
- PRES: present
- RECPAST: recent past
- SG: singular
- TOP: toponymic
Literature
- Capell, A. and Lynch, J. 1983. "Sie vocabulary". In Lynch (1983a) Studies in the languages of Erromango, pp. 75–147. Pacific Linguistics, Series C, No. 79. Canberra: AUSTRALIAN National University.
- Crowley, Terry. 1999. "Ura : a disappearing language of Southern Vanuatu Canberra". Pacific Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. The Australian National University.
- Crowley, Terry. 1998. An Erromangean (Sye) Grammar. University of Hawai’i Press.
- Crowley, Terry. 1991. "Parallel development and shared innovation: some developments in Central Vanuatu inflectional morphology". Oceanic Linguistics 30(2): 179-222.
- Gordon, Rev. J. D. 1889. "Sketch of the Erromangan Grammar". In Rev. D. MacDonald (ed.) Three New Hebrides languages (Efatese, Eromangan, Santo), pp. 61–84. Melbourne: Melbourne Public Library.