Mota language
Mota | |
---|---|
Pronunciation | [ŋ͡mʷota] |
Native to | Vanuatu |
Region | Mota island |
Native speakers | 750 (2012)[1] |
Dialects |
|
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | mtt |
Glottolog | mota1237 |
ELP | Mota |
Mota is an Oceanic language spoken by about 750 people on Mota island, in the Banks Islands of Vanuatu. It is the most conservative Torres–Banks language, and the only one to keep its inherited five-vowel system intact while also preserving most final vowels.[2]
Name
The language is named after the island.
History
During the period 1840–1940, Mota was used as a missionary
Robert Henry Codrington compiled the first dictionary of Mota (1896), and worked with George Sarawia and others to produce a large number of early publications in this language.
Phonology
Phoneme inventory
Mota
Labiovelar | Bilabial | Alveolar | Dorsal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | ŋ͡mʷ ⟨m̄⟩ | m ⟨m⟩ | n ⟨n⟩
|
ŋ ⟨n̄⟩ | |
Stop
|
k͡pʷ ⟨q⟩ | p ⟨p⟩ | t ⟨t⟩
|
k ⟨k⟩ | |
Fricative
|
β ⟨v⟩[a] | s ⟨s⟩ | ɣ ⟨g⟩ | ||
Rhotic | r ⟨r⟩
|
||||
Approximant
|
w ⟨w⟩ | l ⟨l⟩
|
- ^ There is free variation between [β] and [f].
Front | Back | |
---|---|---|
Close | i | u |
Close-mid | e | o |
Open | a |
There is no stress in Mota. As a result, penultimate high vowels tend to be deleted, creating new consonant clusters (see below).
Phonotactics
Literature
The New Testament was translated by Robert Henry Codrington, John Palmer, John Coleridge Patteson and L. Pritt all of the Melanesian Mission. The Bible was published in 1912 and then revised in 1928. The New Testament (O Vatavata we Garaqa) was further revised by W.G. Ivens of the Anglican Melanesian Mission and published in 1931 by the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS).[9] The Anglican Prayer Book was produced in Mota in 1947.[10]
Notes
- ^ François (2012): 88).
- ^ Linguistic map of north Vanuatu, showing range of Mota.
- ^ a b Transcribed by the Right Reverend Dr. Terry Brown (2007). "Elizabeth Colenso: Her work for the Melanesian Mission; by her eldest granddaughter Francis Edith Swabey 1956". Retrieved 5 December 2015.
- ^ François (2005:445)
- ^ François (2021).
- ^ François (2016:31).
- ISSN 1448-8310.
- ^ See François (2005:469, 493). These clusters are reminiscent of the related Dorig language, even though they didn't always arise in the same phonological conditions.
- ^ MOTA Bible | O Vatavata we Garaqa 1931 (Vanuatu) | YouVersion.
- ^ "The Book of Common Prayer in Mota".
References
- Codrington, Robert H.; Palmer, Jim (1896), A Dictionary of the Language of Mota, Sugarloaf Island, Banks' Islands, with a short grammar and index, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
- S2CID 131668754
- —— (2012), "The dynamics of linguistic diversity: Egalitarian multilingualism and power imbalance among northern Vanuatu languages" (PDF), International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2012 (214): 85–110, S2CID 145208588
- —— (2016). "The historical morphology of personal pronouns in northern Vanuatu" (PDF). In Pozdniakov, Konstantin (ed.). Comparatisme et reconstruction : tendances actuelles. Faits de Langues. Vol. 47. Bern: Peter Lang. pp. 25–60.
- —— (2021). "Presentation of the Mota language and audio archive". Pangloss Collection. Paris: CNRS. Retrieved 22 Feb 2022.
External links
- Portions of the Book of Common Prayer in Mota
- Texts in Mota from Project Canterbury
- Audio recordings in the Mota language, in open access, by CNRS).
- Materials on Mota are included in the open access Paradisec.
- [1] Mota New Testament is on YouVersion.