Big Nambas language

Big Nambas
V'ənen Taut
Pronunciation	[ˈð̼ənɛn tautʰ]
Region	Northwest Malekula, Vanuatu
Native speakers	3,400 (2001)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic Northern Vanuatu Malekula Interior Malekula Central Big Nambas
Writing system	Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	nmb
Glottolog	bign1238

Big Nambas (native name V'ənen Taut) is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by about 1,800 people (as of 1983) in northwest Malekula, Vanuatu. Approximately nineteen villages in the Big Nambas region of the Malekula Interior use the language exclusively with no variation in dialect. It was studied in-depth over a period of about 10 years by missionary G. J. Fox, who published a grammar and dictionary in 1979.

Phonology

The consonant phonemes of Big Nambas are as shown in the following table:

		Bilabial	Linguolabial	Alveolar	Velar
Nasal		m	n̼ / m̺	n
Plosive	voiced			ⁿd
	voiceless	p	t̼ / p̺	t	k
Fricative	voiced	β	ð̼ / β̺		ɣ
	voiceless			s
Liquid	rhotic			r
	lateral			l

Big Nambas has a 5-vowel system with the following phonemes:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u uː
Mid	e	ə
Open		a aː

Big Nambas has a complex syllable structure with a large amount of consonant clusters possible. Additionally, clusters of up to four vowels are permitted. Stress in Big Nambas is phonemic, but partly predictable. The consonants /t β r l n/ all exhibit phonemic gemination when two identical ones occur between syllables. Linguolabial consonants are often marked with an apostrophe in the orthography to distinguish them from their bilabial counterparts.

Grammar

Big Nambas is a synthetic head-marking language.

External links

• V'enen Taut recordings