Volow language

The name Volow {{IPA|mlv|βʊˈlʊw|}} is originally a placename: it corresponds to the area known today as Aplow, but in the former language Volow rather than in Mwotlap. Now that the Volow dialect has ceased to be used, the name Volow has been forgotten by the modern population. The place is only known through its Mwotlap name Aplow; as for the language variety, it is often referred to, in the Mwotlap language, as na-vap te-Plōw “the language of Aplow”.

The language variety is sometimes also referred to as na-vap ta Dagmel “the language of Dagmel” (in Mwotlap), after the name of an ancient, now abandoned, village.

Volow has receded historically in favor of the now dominant language Mwotlap.{{Harvcoltxt|François|2012|p=87}} It is now only remembered by a single passive speaker, who lives in the village of Aplow — the new name of what was previously known as Volow.

The similarity of Volow with Mwotlap is such that the two communalects may be considered dialects of a single language.

Volow phonemically contrasts 16 consonants and 7 vowels.François (2021).

:

{{Notelist}}

This consonant inventory includes a typologically rare consonant: a rounded, prenasalised voiced labial-velar plosive {{IPA|[ᵑᵐɡ͡bʷ]}}:{{Harvcoltxt|François|2005b|p=116}}. e.g. {{IPA|[n.lɛᵑᵐɡ͡bʷɛβɪn]}} “woman”{{Harvcoltxt|François|2013|p=191}}. (spelled n-leq̄evēn in the local orthography).

Amongst the 17 Torres–Banks languages, Volow is the only one to have preserved the voicing of the proto-phonemes *ᵑg > /ᵑɡ/ and *ᵐbʷ > /ᵑᵐɡ͡bʷ/, which are reconstructed for its ancestor Proto-Torres-Banks. All its neighbours (including Mwotlap) devoiced these to /k/ and /k​͡pʷ/ respectively.Löyöp still preserves some voiced traces of these phonemes, e.g. when it reflects *ᵑg as /ŋ/ in the syllable-final position of modern words: e.g. POc *waᵑga(ŋ) 'canoe' > {{abbrlink|{{sc|lyp}}|Löyöp language}} {{IPA|urr|n-ɔŋ|}}.

The seven vowels of Volow are all short monophthongs:{{Harvcoltxt|François|2005a|p=445}}.

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{{reflist|2|}}

• [https://pangloss.cnrs.fr/corpus/Volow?lang=en&mode=pro Presentation of the Volow language], by linguist A. François. Access to the Volow corpus (Pangloss Collection of CNRS).
• {{Citation |author = Wanhan |title=Le dignitaire et l’orphelin — The dignitary and the abandoned child |date=1969 |url=https://doi.org/10.24397/pangloss-0003315 |access-date=2025-01-19 |others= |publisher=Pangloss Collection of CNRS |doi=10.24397/pangloss-0003315}}. — Traditional narrative, presented in bilingual format (Volow transcription, French translation). This story was recorded by anthropologist Bernard Vienne in 1969 from the last fluent speaker Wanhand [†1986]; it was transcribed and translated by A. François in 2003, with the help of Wanhand's son, and published online in 2017.

• {{citation

|doi=10.1353/ol.2005.0034

|last=François

|first=Alexandre

|year=2005a

|title=Unraveling the history of the vowels of seventeen northern Vanuatu languages

|journal=Oceanic Linguistics

|volume=44

|issue=2

|pages=443–504

|s2cid=131668754

|url=https://marama.huma-num.fr/data/AlexFrancois_VowelsNorthernVanuatu_OL44-2.pdf

}}

• {{citation

|doi=10.1515/lity.2005.9.1.115

|last=François

|first=Alexandre

|year=2005b

|title=A typological overview of Mwotlap, an Oceanic language of Vanuatu

|journal=Linguistic Typology

|volume=9

|issue=1

|pages=115–146

|s2cid=55878308

|url = https://marama.huma-num.fr/data/AlexFrancois_LingTyp-Mwotlap_2005.pdf

}}

• {{citation

|last=François

|first=Alexandre

|author-link =

|year=2011

|title=Social ecology and language history in the northern Vanuatu linkage: A tale of divergence and convergence

|journal=Journal of Historical Linguistics

|volume=1

|issue=2

|pages=175–246

|doi=10.1075/jhl.1.2.03fra

|url=https://marama.huma-num.fr/data/AlexFrancois_2011_JHL1-2_Social-ecology_Vanuatu.pdf

|hdl=1885/29283

|s2cid=42217419

|hdl-access=free

}}.

• {{citation

|last=François

|first=Alexandre

|year=2012

|title=The dynamics of linguistic diversity: Egalitarian multilingualism and power imbalance among northern Vanuatu languages

|journal=International Journal of the Sociology of Language

|issue=214

|doi=10.1515/ijsl-2012-0022

|pages=85–110

|s2cid=145208588

|url=https://marama.huma-num.fr/data/AlexFrancois_VowelsNorthernVanuatu_OL44-2.pdf

}}

• {{Citation

| last = François

| first = Alexandre

| author-link =

| contribution = Shadows of bygone lives: The histories of spiritual words in northern Vanuatu

| editor1-last = Mailhammer

| editor1-first = Robert

| title = Lexical and structural etymology: Beyond word histories

| volume = 11

| pages = 185–244

| publisher = DeGruyter Mouton

| place = Berlin

| year = 2013

| series = Studies in Language Change

| isbn = 978-1-61451-058-1

| contribution-url =https://marama.huma-num.fr/data/AlexFrancois_2013_Shadows-of-bygone-lives-The-histories-of-spiritual-words-in-northern-Vanuatu.pdf

| chapter-format =

| url=

}}

• {{cite web

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

|title=Presentation of the Volow language and audio archive

|last=François

|first=Alexandre

|author-link=

|date=2021

|website=Pangloss Collection

|location=Paris

|publisher=CNRS

|access-date=28 Sep 2022

|quote=

|ref=pangloss}}

• {{cite book |title=A Comparative Study of the Melanesian Island Languages |last=Ray |first=Sidney Herbert |authorlink=Sidney Herbert Ray |year=1926 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=9781107682023 |pages=xvi+598 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h9tkAwAAQBAJ |accessdate= |ref=Ray}}

{{Languages of Vanuatu}}

{{Southern Oceanic languages}}

{{Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages}}

Category:Banks–Torres languages

Category:Languages of Vanuatu

Category:Torba Province

Category:Endangered Austronesian languages

Category:Critically endangered languages