Nisvai is an Oceanic language spoken in southeast Malekula, Vanuatu, on the eastern tip of the island, by about 200 speakers.[2][1]

Nisvai
Vetbon
Native toVanuatu
RegionMalekula
Native speakers
200 (2001)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
Glottolognisv1234
ELPNisvai
Nisvai is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

The languages surrounding Nisvai include, or used to include, Port Sandwich, Nasvang, Sörsörian, Axamb and Avok.[2]

Name

edit

The name Nisvai literally means "what".

References

edit
  1. ^ a b Lynch, John & Terry Crowley. 2001. Languages of Vanuatu: A new survey and bibliography. Canberra: Australian National University.
  2. ^ a b Charpentier, Jean-Michel (1982). Atlas linguistique du Sud - Malekula—Linguistic Atlas of South Malekula (Vanuatu). Paris: Centre National de la Recherche.
edit
  • Nisvai DoReCo corpus compiled by Jocelyn Aznar. Audio recordings of narrative texts with transcriptions time-aligned at the phone level, translations, and time-aligned morphological annotations.