Vao language
Encyclopedia
Vao is an Austronesian language
of the Oceanic branch spoken by about 1,900 people on Vao Island and on the nearby shores of Malakula
Island, Vanuatu
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Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
of the Oceanic branch spoken by about 1,900 people on Vao Island and on the nearby shores of Malakula
Malakula
Malakula Island , also spelled Malekula, is the second-largest island in the nation of Vanuatu, in the Pacific Ocean region of Melanesia...
Island, 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...
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Characteristics
Vao is one of the few languages of the world, possessing linguolabial consonantLinguolabial consonant
Linguolabials or apicolabials are consonants articulated by placing the tongue tip or blade against the upper lip, which is drawn downward to meet the tongue. They represent one extreme of a coronal articulatory continuum which extends from linguolabial to subapical palatal places of articulation...
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