Mota language

Mota
Native to Vanuatu
Region Mota island
Native speakers
 750 (2012)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 mtt
Glottolog mota1237[2]

Mota is an Oceanic language spoken by about 750 people on Mota island, in the Banks Islands of Vanuatu.[3]

History

During the period 1840-1940, Mota was used as a missionary lingua franca throughout areas of Oceania included in the Melanesian Mission, an Anglican missionary agency.[4] Mota was used on Norfolk Island, in religious education; on other islands with different vernacular languages, it served as the language of liturgical prayers, hymns, and some other religious purposes. Elizabeth Fairburn Colenso translated religious material into the language.[4]

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

Mota has 5 phonemic vowels, /i e a o u/.[5]

Notes

  1. ↑ François (2012): 88).
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Mota". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ Linguistic map of north Vanuatu, showing range of Mota.
  4. 1 2 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.
  5. ↑ François (2005:445, 460).

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
  • François, Alexandre (2005), "Unraveling the history of the vowels of seventeen northern Vanuatu languages" (PDF), Oceanic Linguistics, 44 (2): 443–504, doi:10.1353/ol.2005.0034
  • François, Alexandre (2012), "The dynamics of linguistic diversity: Egalitarian multilingualism and power imbalance among northern Vanuatu languages", International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 214: 85–110, doi:10.1515/ijsl-2012-0022


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