Nafsan

Rosey Billington,Janet Fletcher,Nick Thieberger

doi:10.1017/s0025100321000177

Abstract

Nafsan (ISO 639-3: erk, Glottocode: sout2856), also known as South Efate, is a Southern Oceanic language of Vanuatu. It is spoken in Erakor, Eratap and Pango, three villages situated along the southern coast of the island of Efate (Figure 1) (Clark 1985, Lynch 2000, Thieberger 2006). Nafsan is also closely related to Eton, Lelepa, Nakanamanga and Namakura, spoken further to the north on Efate and some smaller neighbouring islands.1 Nafsan is often described as the southernmost member of the North-Central Vanuatu group of languages, and the Nafsan and Eton-speaking communities are noted to be at the core of ‘an unmistakable area of innovation’ compared to their northern neighbours (Clark 1985: 25). Though crosslinguistic comparisons suggest a clear boundary between North-Central Vanuatu languages and languages of the Southern Vanuatu group, there is evidence that Nafsan speakers have both linguistic and cultural links to the southern islands, suggestive of complex historical relationships between the populations of the central and southern regions (Lynch 2004; Thieberger 2007, 2015). In terms of the sound system, Nafsan is noted to be of particular interest because it ‘forms a transition between the phonologically more conservative languages to the north and the more “aberrant” languages to the south’ (Lynch 2000: 320), and exhibits phonotactic patterns which are complex and typologically uncommon, particularly among Oceanic languages (Thieberger 2006).

Highlights

As noted for /kÉp/, formant trajectories indicate that in syllable onsets the velar closure for /NÉm/ is initiated before the labial closure, and the consonant release is similar to that of /m/, for example as seen in the low F1 and F2 following initial /NÉm/ in Figure 5c below
The observations and examples given throughout this paper are based on materials recorded with 13 adult speakers of Nafsan during fieldwork in Erakor in 2017 and 2018, as well as earlier materials recorded with various speakers in Erakor primarily between 1995–2000.2 The sets of examples showing phonemic consonant distinctions and phonemic vowel distinctions were recorded with Lingkary Kalpram
Most speakers contributing to this work have some knowledge of either English or French, both official languages alongside Bislama, and some have knowledge of languages spoken on other islands of Vanuatu, acquired through family connections

Summary

Introduction

As noted for /kÉp/, formant trajectories indicate that in syllable onsets the velar closure for /NÉm/ is initiated before the labial closure, and the consonant release is similar to that of /m/, for example as seen in the low F1 and F2 following initial /NÉm/ in Figure 5c below.

Results

Conclusion