| Volow | |
|---|---|
| Aplow, Valuwa | |
| Vōlōw | |
| Pronunciation | [βʊˈlʊw] |
| Native to | Vanuatu |
| Region | Mota Lava island, Banks Islands |
| Extinct | 1986 [1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | volo1238 |
| ELP | Volow |
 Volow is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
Volow (formerly known as Valuwa or Valuga) is an Oceanic language variety that used to be spoken in the area of Aplow, in the eastern part of the island of Motalava, Vanuatu. [1] [2] [3] [4]
The name Volow [βʊˈlʊw] is originally a placename: it corresponds to the area known today as Aplow, but in the former language Volow rather than in Mwotlap. Now that the Volow dialect has ceased to be used, the name Volow has been forgotten by the modern population. The place is only known through its Mwotlap name Aplow; as for the language variety, it is often referred to, in the Mwotlap language, as na-vap te-Plōw “the language of Aplow”.
The language variety is sometimes also referred to as na-vap ta Dagmel “the language of Dagmel”, after the name of an ancient, now abandoned, village.
Volow has receded historically in favor of the now dominant language Mwotlap. [1] It is now only remembered by a single passive speaker, who lives in the village of Aplow — the new name of what was previously known as Volow.
The similarity of Volow with Mwotlap is such that the two communalects may be considered dialects of a single language.
Volow phonemically contrasts 16 consonants and 7 vowels. [5]
| Labial–velar | Bilabial | Alveolar | Dorsal | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | ŋ͡m ʷ ⟨m̄⟩ | m ⟨m⟩ | n ⟨n⟩ | ŋ ⟨n̄⟩ | ||
| Stop | voiceless | t ⟨t⟩ | ||||
| prenasalized | ᵑ ᵐ ɡ͡b ʷ ⟨q̄⟩ | ᵐb ⟨b⟩ | ⁿd ⟨d⟩ | ᵑɡ ⟨ḡ⟩ | ||
| Fricative | β [a] ⟨v⟩ | s ⟨s⟩ | ɣ ⟨g⟩ | h ⟨h⟩ | ||
| Approximant | w ⟨w⟩ | l ⟨l⟩ | j ⟨y⟩ | |||
This consonant inventory includes a typologically rare consonant: a rounded, prenasalised voiced labial-velar plosive [ᵑᵐɡ͡bʷ]: [6] e.g. [n.lɛᵑᵐɡ͡bʷɛβɪn] “woman” [7] (spelled n-leq̄evēn in the local orthography).
Historically, Volow is the only daughter language to have preserved the voicing of the proto-phonemes *ᵑg > /ᵑɡ/ and *ᵐbʷ > /ᵑᵐɡ͡bʷ/, which is reconstructed for its ancestor Proto-Torres-Banks. Most of its neighbours (including Mwotlap) devoiced these to /k/ and /k͡pʷ/ respectively.
The seven vowels of Volow are all short monophthongs: [8]
Labial–velar consonants are doubly articulated at the velum and the lips, such as. They are sometimes called "labiovelar consonants", a term that can also refer to labialized velars, such as the stop consonant and the approximant.
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Alexandre François is a French linguist specialising in the description and study of the indigenous languages of Melanesia. He belongs to Lattice, a research centre of the CNRS and École Normale Supérieure dedicated to linguistics.
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