Lemerig language

Lemerig is an Oceanic language spoken on Vanua Lava, in Vanuatu.

Lemerig
Pak, Päk, Sasar
Pronunciation	[lɪmɪˈriɣ]
Native to	Vanuatu
Region	Vanua Lava
Native speakers	2 (2010)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic North-Central Vanuatu North Vanuatu Torres-Banks Lemerig
Dialects	Alo-Teqel, Pak, Sasar
Language codes
ISO 639-3	lrz
Glottolog	leme1238
ELP	Lemerig
Lemerig is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

One of the two remaining speakers of Lemerig, recorded in Vanuatu.

The language is no longer actively spoken. The 2 remaining speakers live on the northern coast of the island. Lemerig has receded in favour of its neighbours Mwotlap and Vera'a.

Name

The name Lemerig refers to a now abandoned village in northern Vanua Lava; it is spelled Lēmērig /lɪmɪˈriɣ/ in the language of the same name. It reflects an earlier Proto-Torres-Banks form *lemeriɣi, where the *riɣi component likely means "small".

Dialects

Lemerig has sometimes been referred to using the names of its local varieties: Päk; Sasar; Alo-Teqel.

Judging from wordlists published by missionary and linguist Robert Codrington, these three varieties were very close to each other. The little differences there were went extinct during the 20th century.

Phonology

Lemerig has 11 phonemic vowels. These are all short monophthongs /i ɪ ɛ æ a œ ø ɒ̝ ɔ ʊ u/.

Lemerig vowels

	Front		Back
	plain	round
Close	i ⟨i⟩		u ⟨u⟩
Near-close	ɪ ⟨ē⟩	ø ⟨ö⟩	ʊ ⟨ō⟩
Open-mid	ɛ ⟨e⟩	œ ⟨ë⟩	ɔ ⟨o⟩
Near-open	æ ⟨ä⟩		ɒ̝ ⟨ā⟩
Open	a ⟨a⟩

Grammar

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

Spatial reference in Lemerig is based on a system of geocentric (absolute) directionals, which is in part typical of Oceanic languages, in part innovative.

Bibliography

• Codrington, Robert Henry (1885). The Melanesian Languages. Vol. 47. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 25–60.
• Codrington, Robert Henry (1891). The Melanesians: Studies in Their Anthropology and Folk-lore. New York: Clarendon Press. ISBN 9780486202587.
• François, Alexandre (2011). "Social ecology and language history in the northern Vanuatu linkage: A tale of divergence and convergence" (PDF). Journal of Historical Linguistics. 1 (2): 175–246. doi:10.1075/jhl.1.2.03fra. hdl:1885/29283. S2CID 42217419..
• —— (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. doi:10.1515/ijsl-2012-0022. S2CID 145208588.
• —— (2015). "The ins and outs of up and down: Disentangling the nine geocentric space systems of Torres and Banks languages" (PDF). In Alexandre François; Sébastien Lacrampe; Michael Franjieh; Stefan Schnell (eds.). The languages of Vanuatu: Unity and diversity. Studies in the Languages of Island Melanesia. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics. pp. 137–195. ISBN 978-1-922185-23-5.
• —— (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 Lemerig language and audio archive". Pangloss Collection. Paris: CNRS. Retrieved 19 Nov 2023.
• François, Alexandre & Taitus Sërortēlsöm (2006). Nvāv ʻām ʻa Lēmērig — Storian long lanwis blong Lemerig (Vanua Lava, Banks, Vanuatu). Collection of stories from the oral tradition, monolingual in Lemerig. Paris.

External links

• Audio recordings in the Lemerig language, in open access, by linguist A. François (Pangloss Collection). Features a presentation of the language, and pictures of some of the last speakers.