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Olrat language

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Olrat was an Oceanic language of Gaua island, in northern Vanuatu. It became extinct in 2009, with the death of its last speaker Maten Womal.[2]

Olrat
Ōlrat
Pronunciation[ʊlrat]
Native toVanuatu
RegionGaua
Native speakers
3 (2012)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3olr
Glottologolra1234
ELPOlrat
Olrat is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
Not to be confused with OLRAT.

Name

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The name Olrat (spelled natively as Ōlrat [ʊlrat]) is an endonym. Robert Codrington mentions a place south of Lakon village under the Mota name Ulrata.[3] A few decades later, Sidney Ray mentions the language briefly in 1926 under the same Mota name ‒ but provides no linguistic information.[4]

The language

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A. François with †Maten Womal, the last storyteller of Olrat (Gaua, Vanuatu, 2003)

In 2003, only three speakers of Olrat remained, who lived on the middle-west coast of Gaua.[5] Their community had left their inland hamlet of Olrat in the first half of the 20th century, and merged into the larger village of Jōlap where Lakon is dominant.[1][2]

Alexandre François identifies Olrat as a distinct language from its immediate neighbor Lakon, on phonological,[6] grammatical,[7] and lexical[8] grounds.

Phonology

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Olrat has 14 phonemic vowels. These include 7 short /i ɪ ɛ a ɔ ʊ u/ and 7 long vowels /iː ɪː ɛː aː ɔː ʊː uː/.[9][2]

Olrat vowels
  Front Back
Near-close i ⟨i⟩ ∙ iː ⟨ii⟩ u ⟨u⟩ ∙ uː ⟨uu⟩
Close-mid ɪ ⟨ē⟩ ∙ ɪː ⟨ēē⟩ ʊ ⟨ō⟩ ∙ ʊː ⟨ōō⟩
Open-mid ɛ ⟨e⟩ ∙ ɛː ⟨ee⟩ ɔ ⟨o⟩ ∙ ɔː ⟨oo⟩
Open a ⟨a⟩ ∙ aː ⟨aa⟩

Historically, the phonologization of vowel length originates in the compensatory lengthening of short vowels when the voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ was lost syllable-finally.[10]

Grammar

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The system of personal pronouns in Olrat contrasts clusivity, and distinguishes four numbers (singular, dual, trial, plural).[11]

Spatial reference in Olrat is based on a system of geocentric (absolute) directionals, which is typical of Oceanic languages.[12]

Notes and references

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References

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  1. ^ a b François (2012).
  2. ^ a b c François (2022).
  3. ^ See page 378 of: Codrington, R. H. (1885). The Melanesian Languages. Vol. 47. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 25–60.
  4. ^ See page 428 of: Ray, Sidney Herbert (1926). A Comparative Study of the Melanesian Island Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. xvi+598. ISBN 9781107682023. .
  5. ^ List of Banks islands languages.
  6. ^ François (2005)
  7. ^ François (2007)
  8. ^ François (2011)
  9. ^ François (2005:445), François (2011:194).
  10. ^ François (2005:461).
  11. ^ François (2016).
  12. ^ François (2015).

Bibliography

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