Mono-Alu language

Last updated
Mono
Mono-Alu
Region Solomon Islands
Native speakers
(2,900 cited 1999) [1]
Dialects
  • Mono
  • Alu
  • Fauro
Language codes
ISO 639-3 mte
Glottolog mono1273
ELP Mono (Solomon Islands)

Mono, or Alu, is an Oceanic language of Solomon Islands reported in 1999 to be spoken by 660 people on Treasury Island (Mono proper), 2,270 on Shortland Island (Alu dialect), and 14 on Fauro Island. [1]

Contents

Phonology

Mono-Alu language has been studied extensively by Joel L. Fagan, [2] a researcher for the Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies at Australian National University. Their publication, "A Grammatical Analysis of Mono-Alu (Bougainville Straits, Solomon Islands)," [3] is one of the first and only translations and analysis of Mono-Alu language.

Fagan identified the Mono-Alu language as having twenty-eight phonemes. They are made up of nine diphthongs, and five vowels and fourteen consonants that make up the alphabet.

The Alu alphabet

  1. The Alu alphabet has 19 letters: A B D E F G H I K L M N O P R S T U V.
  2. Of these letters, D was seldom used instead of R for euphony's sake, but is used now in new foreign words or names introduced in the language. H generally (not always) is or can be replaced by F.

Pronunciation

Pronunciation of vowels
  • 'a' is usually pronounced as in flat
    • a sometimes pronounced as in fast
  • 'e' is always pronounced as in ten
  • 'i' is always pronounced as in tin
  • 'o' is always pronounced as in not
  • 'u' is always pronounced as in put
Pronunciation of diphthongs
  • ai is pronounced "aye" - e.g. Galeai.
    • sometimes the letters are pronounced separately
  • ei has no equivalent sound in English.
  • oi is pronounced "oy" - e.g. ba-oi ('shark').
    • sometimes the letters are pronounced separately. - e.g. o-i-sa ('echo').
  • ui used as a diphthong - e.g. sui-o ('swallow')
Pronunciation of consonants
  • g is always pronounced as in Glas, giddy. Q is not used as is done elsewhere.[ clarification needed ] Here also, the words are written as they are pronounced – e.g. ang (instead of ag), ing, ong, ung. When, exceptionally, the n is after g as in gnora, owing to the nasal pronunciation, the accentuated n can be used as in Choiseul.
  • ng is pronounced as in English with the exception of uhg, the sound of u always being that of Latin.
    • ang is pronounced as in gang
    • ing is pronounced as in 'ring'
    • eng is pronounced as in 'length'
    • ong is pronounced as in 'wrong'

The other consonants have the same sounds as in English.

Labial Coronal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive p b t k g ʔ
Fricative s h
Tap ɾ
Approximant ( w ) l ( j )
  • /b/ can also be heard as fricatives [β, v] under certain conditions.
  • /ɡ/ can be heard as [ɣ] in free variation,
  • /ɾ/ can also be heard as [d] in free variation within word-initial position, or as [dɾ] when following a nasal.
Front Central Back
High i u
Mid ɛ ɔ
Low ɐ
  • /u, i/ are heard as glides [w, j] within vowel environments. [4] [3]

Numerals

The number system of Mono-Alu is very similar to other Austronesian languages. [5] For example, Mono-Alu shares the numbers 'two' (elua) and 'five' (lima) with the Hawaiian Polynesian language. A number for 'zero' was available in the language, but it was under the same use as the word 'nothing.' Fagan identified numbers from one to ten-thousand in Mono-Alu.

CardinalEnglish
Mennanothing
Kala (or elea)one
Eluatwo
Episathree
Ehatifour
Limafive
Onomosix
Hituseven
Alueight
Ulianine
Lafuluten
Lafulu rohona eleaeleven
Lafulu rohona eluatwelve
Lafulu rohona episathirteen
Lafulu rohona efatifourteen
Lafulu rohona limafifteen
Lafulu rohona onomosixteen
Lafulu rohona hituseventeen
Lafulu rohona alueighteen
Lafulu rohona ulianineteen
Elua lafulu (or Tanaoge)twenty
Episa lafulu (or Pisafulu)thirty
Efati lafulu (or Fatiafulu)forty
Lima lafulu (or limafulu)fifty
Onomo lafulusixty
Fitu lafuluseventy
Alu lafulueighty
Ulia lafulu (or Siafulu)ninety
Ea latuuone-hundred
Elua latuutwo-hundred
Ea kokoleione-thousand
Elua kokoleitwo-thousand
Lafulu kokoleiten-thousand

[3]

Mono-Alu also made[ clarification needed ] use of ordinal numbers. However, only 'first' (famma) is an actual word, where all other successive numbers are a grammatical construct.

OrdinalEnglish
fammafirst
Fa-elua-naangsecond
Fa-epis-naanathird
Fa-ehati-naanafourth
Fa-lima-naanafifth
Fa-onomo-naanasixth
Fa-hitu-naanaseventh
Fa-alu-naanaeighth
Fa-ulia-naananinth
Fa-lafulu-naanatenth

[3]

Grammar

Mono-Alu, like many other Austronesian languages, uses two separate pronouns for the first-person plural. One is inclusive, including the listener, and the other is exclusive, not including the listener. There are also no third-person pronouns available in the language. Fagan translated pronouns and their possessives.

[3]
PronounObjSuffixOther
1st
person
singularmafa-afa-gusagu
pluralexclusivemani-ami-mang, -masamang/sama
inclusivemaita-ita-rasara
2nd
person
singularmaito-o-ngsang
pluralmaang-ang-miasamia
3rd
person
singular----i, -ng-nasana
plural----ri, -iri-riasaria

Mono-Alu is very specific regarding adverbs and other verb affixes. Verbs can be altered with a prefix, infix, and a suffix.

PrefixesInfixesSuffixes
angrelative prefix, alternate forms an, ai, a'ntafainfix denoting completionaithere, away
facausative prefix, fa becomes f before a, alternate form hafangone another (reciprocal infix), alternate form fanmahither, thither, alternate form ama
tainfix or prefix showing action or state.feroelsewhere, to somewhere else
isatogether, at the same time, alternate sa
maleagain (also occurs independently)
meamakes a plural
mekatill[ spelling? ] tired, for a very long time, alternate form meko

[3]

aplace where or whither,[ clarification needed ] alternate form ang occurs after a
ngadded to the first of two names gives the meaning 'and', alternate form m
uadenotes addition, 'and', 'with'
-a'of', especially before -ang, alternate forms an, ang, aan
afa-'what?'
-ataoften found after verbs and other words, alternate forms eta, ita, ota, uta
gaparticle, most often after the first word in a sentence, untranslatable; 'so, therefore' at the beginning of a sentence, also used with pronoun forms to emphasise them: gafa, gami, gai, gaina, gang, etc.
-nanaequivalent to copula, alternate form nina
-titistrengthens the idea of repetition or duration

Mono-Alu grammar also follows rules of gender.

Nouns

Gender of nouns

There are two ways of indicating differences of gender:

  1. by different words: - e.g.
    • Tiong 'man' – Betafa 'woman'
    • Fanua 'men' – Talaiva 'women'
    • Lalaafa 'headman' – Mamaefa 'headwoman'
    • Tua-na 'his grandfather' – Tete-na 'his grandmother'
    • Kanega 'old man' (husband) – Magota 'old woman' (wife)
  2. by using an ord[ spelling? ] indicative of sex: – e.g.
    • Kui manuale 'baby' (male) – Kui batafa 'baby' (female)
    • Boo sule 'boar' – Boo tuaru 'sow' (sule and tuaru are used for animals only)

In other cases, there is no distinction between masculine, feminine and neuter.

Some exceptions within the rules of Mono-Alu have been discovered. [6]

Two adverbs of place, instead of being written with a double consonant, are written with one only accentuated.

  • e.g. Nai (instead of NNai) – 'here'
  • 'Nao (instead of NNao) – 'there'

Instead of the aspirate h, the letter f can be used:

  1. in verbs preceded by the causative ha (or fa)
    • e.g. fasoku (or hasoku) – 'let come'
  2. in verbs preceded by the prefix han (or fan) meaning reciprocity or duality
    • e.g. fanua (or hanua) - 'mon'[ spelling? ]
    • mafa (or maha) - 'I, no' [3]

There is no word for 'the' in the language.

Articles

There is no definite article in Alu.

There is no indefinite article such as 'a, an'; it is replaced by the indefinite number elea ('one'). [3]

Related Research Articles

The Finnish language is spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns elsewhere. Unlike the languages spoken in neighbouring countries, such as Swedish and Norwegian, which are North Germanic languages, or Russian, which is a Slavic language, Finnish is a Uralic language of the Finnic languages group. Typologically, Finnish is agglutinative. As in some other Uralic languages, Finnish has vowel harmony, and like other Finnic languages, it has consonant gradation.

Brithenig, or also known as Comroig, is an invented language, or constructed language ("conlang"). It was created as a hobby in 1996 by Andrew Smith from New Zealand, who also invented the alternate history of Ill Bethisad to "explain" it. Officially according to the Ill Bethisad Wiki, Brithenig is classified as a Britanno-Romance language, along with other Romance languages that displaced Celtic.

The morphology of Irish is in some respects typical of an Indo-European language. Nouns are declined for number and case, and verbs for person and number. Nouns are classified by masculine or feminine gender. Other aspects of Irish morphology, while typical for an Insular Celtic language, are not typical for Indo-European, such as the presence of inflected prepositions and the initial consonant mutations. Irish syntax is also rather different from that of most Indo-European languages, due to its use of the verb–subject–object word order.

Swedish is descended from Old Norse. Compared to its progenitor, Swedish grammar is much less characterized by inflection. Modern Swedish has two genders and no longer conjugates verbs based on person or number. Its nouns have lost the morphological distinction between nominative and accusative cases that denoted grammatical subject and object in Old Norse in favor of marking by word order. Swedish uses some inflection with nouns, adjectives, and verbs. It is generally a subject–verb–object (SVO) language with V2 word order.

Much of Tamil grammar is extensively described in the oldest available grammar book for Tamil, the Tolkāppiyam. Modern Tamil writing is largely based on the 13th century grammar Naṉṉūl, which restated and clarified the rules of the Tolkāppiyam with some modifications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skolt Sámi</span> Uralic, Sámi language

Skolt Sámi is a Uralic, Sámi language that is spoken by the Skolts, with approximately 300 speakers in Finland, mainly in Sevettijärvi and approximately 20–30 speakers of the Njuõʹttjäuʹrr (Notozero) dialect in an area surrounding Lake Lovozero in Russia. In Norway, there are fewer than 15 that can speak Skolt Sámi ; furthermore, the language is largely spoken in the Neiden area. It is written using a modified Roman orthography which was made official in 1973.

The morphology of the Welsh language has many characteristics likely to be unfamiliar to speakers of English or continental European languages like French or German, but has much in common with the other modern Insular Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Cornish, and Breton. Welsh is a moderately inflected language. Verbs inflect for person, number, tense, and mood, with affirmative, interrogative, and negative conjugations of some verbs. There is no case inflection in Modern Welsh.

Teso is an Eastern Nilotic language spoken by the Teso people of Uganda and Kenya and some speakers are in South Sudan. It is part of the Teso–Turkana language cluster.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hejazi Arabic</span> Variety of Arabic spoken in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia

Hejazi Arabic or Hijazi Arabic (HA), also known as West Arabian Arabic, is a variety of Arabic spoken in the Hejaz region in Saudi Arabia. Strictly speaking, there are two main groups of dialects spoken in the Hejaz region, one by the urban population, originally spoken mainly in the cities of Jeddah, Mecca, Medina and partially in Ta'if and another dialect by the urbanized rural and bedouin populations. However, the term most often applies to the urban variety which is discussed in this article.

Ixcatec is a language spoken by the people of the Mexican village of Santa María Ixcatlan, in the northern part of the state of Oaxaca. The Ixcatec language belongs to the Popolocan branch of the Oto-manguean language family. It is believed to have been the second language to branch off from the others within the Popolocan subgroup, though there is a small debate over the relation it has to them.

Lau, also known as Mala, is an Oceanic language spoken on northeast Malaita, in the Solomon Islands. In 1999, Lau had about 16,937 first-language speakers, with many second-language speakers through Malaitan communities in the Solomon Islands, especially in Honiara.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nukak language</span> Endangered indigenous language of Colombia

The Nukak language is a language of uncertain classification, perhaps part of the macrofamily Puinave-Maku. It is very closely related to Kakwa.

Kiwai is a Papuan language, or languages, of southern Papua New Guinea. Dialects number 1,300 Kope, 700 Gibaio, 1,700 Urama, 700 Arigibi, 3,800 Coast, 1,000 Daru, 4,500 Island, 400 Doumori. Wurm and Hattori (1981) classify Arigibi as a separate language.

The Kwaio language, or Koio, is spoken in the centre of Malaita Island in the Solomon Islands. It is spoken by about 13,000 people.

Birri (Bviri) is a nearly extinct, possibly Central Sudanic language of the Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan. According to Boyeldieu (2010), its classification as Central Sudanic has yet to be demonstrated, but Starostin (2016) finds its closest relative to be Kresh.

Grass Koiari (Koiali) is a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea spoken in the inland Port Moresby area. It is not very close to the other language which shares its name, Mountain Koiali. It is considered a threatened language.

Tungag, or Lavongai, is an Austronesian language of New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea, localized New Hanover, the native name of which is Lavongai.

Talise is a Southeast Solomonic language native to Guadalcanal with a speaker population of roughly 13,000. While some consider Talise to be its own language, others use it as a blanket term to group the closely related dialects of Poleo, Koo, Malagheti, Moli, and Tolo. It is a branch of the Proto-Guadalcanal family, which forms part of the Southeast Solomons language group.

Guosa is a constructed interlanguage originally created by Alex Igbineweka in 1965. It was designed to be a combination of the indigenous languages of Nigeria and to serve as a lingua franca to West Africa.

Levantine Arabic grammar is the set of rules by which Levantine Arabic creates statements, questions and commands. In many respects, it is quite similar to that of the other vernacular Arabic varieties.

References

  1. 1 2 Mono at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. A Short grammar of the Alu language.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Fagan, Joel (1986). A Grammatical Analysis of Mono-Alu (Bougainville Straits, Solomon Islands) . Canberra, Australia: The Australian National University. doi:10.15144/PL-B96. hdl:1885/145402. ISBN   0-85883-339-5.
  4. Meier, Sabrina C. (2020). Topics in the Grammar of Mono-Alu (Oceanic). University of Newcastle.
  5. Lincoln, Forster, Peter, Hilary (2001). Letters written in Mono-Alu language of Western District, Solomon Islands to Hilary Forster of N.Z. ; Mono-Alu word list by Hilary Forster of N.Z. and a teacher from Shortland Islands, Solomon Islands. Shortlands, Solomon Islands.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. Stolz, Thomas (1996). Some Instruments Are Really Good Companions - Some Are Not. On Syncretism and the Typology of Instrumentals and Comitatives. pp. Theoretical Linguistics 23. 113–200.