Teanu language

File:AlexFrancois_carte-Vanikoro-ile-821.jpg I., showing the historical territories of the three tribes of Lovono, Tanema and Teanu.Source: [http://alex.francois.online.fr/AF-maps-Vanikoro.htm#a Maps of Vanikoro (languages, place names)].|alt=]]

The language receives its name from Teanu, the island located northeast of the Vanikoro island group. The same language has also been known in the literature as Puma (or wrongly Buma), after the main village of Teanu island.{{Harvcoltxt|François|2009}}.

The very first source about the languages of Vanikoro were wordlists collected in 1834 by French naturalist Joseph Paul Gaimard, as he took part in the first voyage of Astrolabe (1826–36) led by Dumont d'Urville. On top of his botanical and zoological work, Gaimard collected, and later published, about ten pages of wordlists in Teanu, Tanema and Lovono.Gaimard (1834). In this work, the three languages were labelled respectively “Tanéanou”, “Tanema”, and “Vanikoro”.

More data was collected in the 1980s by Australian linguist Darrell Tryon;Tryon (1994), 2002). he described Teanu using the name “Buma”.

The languages of Vanikoro are currently being studied by French linguist Alexandre François.See François (2009, 2021a, 2021b).

Whereas Teanu used to be confined to the northeast part of the island group, during the 20th century it became the main language of the whole island group of Vanikoro, at the expense of the two other indigenous languages Lovono and Tanema.

While the Melanesian population of Vanikoro now speaks Teanu, the southern coast of the island also has been colonised for a few centuries by a Polynesian population, who still keep strong ties with their homeland, the nearby island of Tikopia. Their main language is Tikopia, even though some speak Teanu as a second language.

The phoneme inventory of Teanu includes 19 consonants and 5 vowels.François (2021a), Introduction to the Teanu dictionary – §[https://dictionaria.clld.org/contributions/teanu#section12 Phonology].See François (2022).

The labiodental fricative /v/ can be freely devoiced {{IPAblink|f}}, especially word-initially.Tryon (2002). By contrast, the phoneme /s/ is always heard voiceless.François (2009, 2021a), pace Tryon (2002).

Teanu does not have a phonemic palatal glide /{{IPA link|j}}/: the sound [j] only exists as an allophone of /i/ before another vowel: e.g. iebe [i.e.ᵐbe] ~ [je.ᵐbe] ‘besom, broom’.

Teanu has 5 phonemic vowels, /i e a o u/.

Tryon (2002) proposed that vowel length may be contrastive, but more recent research has found this to be incorrect: the language only has five short vowels {{Harvcol|François|2009|p=107}}.

{{reflist}}

• {{Citation

| last = François

| first = Alexandre

| author-link = Alexandre François (linguist)

| contribution = The languages of Vanikoro: Three lexicons and one grammar

| editor-last = Evans

| editor-first = Bethwyn

| title = Discovering history through language: Papers in honour of Malcolm Ross

| pages = 103–126

| publisher = Australian National University

| place = Canberra

| year = 2009

| series = Pacific Linguistics 605

| contribution-url = https://www.academia.edu/848677/

| ref = F2009

}}

• {{cite book

|last = François

|first = Alexandre

|author-mask=2

|date=2021a

|title=Teanu dictionary (Solomon Islands)

|location=

|series=Dictionaria

|volume=15

|pages= 1–1877

|url=https://dictionaria.clld.org/contributions/teanu

|doi=10.5281/zenodo.5653063

|ref=dictionary

}}

• {{cite web

| url = http://alex.francois.online.fr/AF-dict-Teanu_e.htm

| title = Online Teanu–English dictionary, with equivalents in Lovono and Tanema

| last = François

| first = Alexandre

| author-mask=2

| date = 2021b

| website =

| publisher = CNRS

| access-date =

| ref= dict_3lgs

}}

• {{cite web

|url=https://pangloss.cnrs.fr/corpus/Teanu?lang=en&mode=pro&seeMore=true

|title=Presentation of the Teanu language, and audio archive

|last=François

|first=Alexandre

|author-mask=2

|author-link=

|date=2022

|website=Pangloss Collection

|location=Paris

|publisher=CNRS

|access-date=

|ref=pangloss}}

• {{cite book

|last=Gaimard

|first=Joseph

|author-link=Joseph Paul Gaimard

|date=1834

|title=Voyage de découvertes de l'Astrolabe, exécuté par ordre du Roi, pendant les années 1826-1827-1828-1829, sous le commandement de M. J. Dumont d'Urville, Capitaine de vaisseau — Philologie

|chapter=Vocabulaires des idiomes des habitans de Vanikoro

|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_fh1EvifMKDIC/page/n168/mode/1up

|location=Paris

|publisher=Ministère de la Marine

|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_fh1EvifMKDIC/

|pages= 165–174

|volume=1

|editor1=Jules Dumont d'Urville |editor1-link=Jules Dumont d'Urville

|ref=Gaimard

}}

• {{Cite book| publisher = Mouton de Gruyter| isbn = 978-3-11-088309-1| pages = 611–648 | last = Tryon| first = Darrell|author-link=Darrell Tryon | chapter = Language contact and contact-induced language change in the Eastern Outer Islands, Solomon Islands |editor1 = Tom Dutton |editor2 = Darrell Tryon | title = Language Contact and Change in the Austronesian World | location = Berlin| date = 1994}}
• {{Citation|last=Tryon|first=Darrell|author-link= |author-mask=2|contribution=Buma |year=2002| editor1-last = Lynch | editor1-first = John | editor1-link = John Lynch (linguist) | editor2-last=Ross| editor2-first=Malcolm | editor3-last=Crowley | editor3-first=Terry | editor2-link = Malcolm Ross (linguist) | editor3-link= Terry Crowley (linguist) | title = The Oceanic Languages | location = Richmond, Surrey | publisher = Curzon |pages=573–586|ref=Tryon}}

• [https://abvd.shh.mpg.de/austronesian/language.php?id=224 Basic vocabulary list in Teanu (Buma)] (site: ABVD)
• [https://pangloss.cnrs.fr/corpus/Teanu?lang=en&mode=pro&seeMore=true Audio recordings in the Teanu language], in open access, by Alexandre François (source: Pangloss Collection of CNRS).

{{Languages of the Solomon Islands}}

{{Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages}}

Category:Languages of the Solomon Islands

Category:Temotu languages

Category:Definitely endangered languages