Vurës language

Vurës (Vureas, Vures) is an Oceanic language spoken in the southern area of Vanua Lava Island, in the Banks Islands of northern Vanuatu, by about 2000 speakers.^[2]

Vurës
Vureas
Pronunciation	[βyˈrœs]
Native to	Vanuatu
Region	Vanua Lava
Native speakers	2,000 (2016)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic North-Central Vanuatu North Vanuatu Torres-Banks Vurës
Language codes
ISO 639-3	msn (shared with Mwesen)
Glottolog	vure1239
ELP	Vurës
Vurës is not endangered according to the classification system of the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

A Vurës speaker, recorded in Vanuatu.

Vurës was described by linguist Catriona Malau, in the form of a grammar^[2] and a dictionary.^[3]

Name

The name Vurës [βyˈrœs] is named after the bay located in southwestern Vanua Lava in the language itself. In Mota, the bay is referred to as Vureas [βureas]. Cognates in other Torres-Banks languages include Mwotlap Vuyes [βuˈjɛs] and Mwesen Vures [βuˈrɛs]. These come from a reconstructed Proto-Torres–Banks form *βureas(i,u), with an unknown final high vowel.

Dialectology

Vurës shows enough similarities with the neighbouring language Mwesen that the two have sometimes been considered dialects of a single language, sometimes called Mosina (after the name of Mwesen village in the language Mota). And indeed, a 2018 glottometric study has calculated that Vurës and Mwesen share 85% of their historical innovations, revealing a long history of shared development between these two lects.^[4]

However, studies have shown that Mwesen and Vurës have various dissimilarities, e.g. in their vowel systems,^[5] in their noun articles,^[6] in their pronoun paradigms^[7][8] — enough to be considered clearly distinct.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial- velar	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	k͡pʷ ⟨q⟩		t̪ ⟨t⟩		k ⟨k⟩	(ʔ)
	prenasal		ᵐb ⟨b⟩	ⁿd̪ ⟨d⟩
Nasal		ŋ͡mʷ ⟨m̄⟩	m ⟨m⟩		n ⟨n⟩	ŋ ⟨n̄⟩
Fricative			β ⟨v⟩		s ⟨s⟩	ɣ ⟨g⟩
Liquid	rhotic				r ⟨r⟩
	lateral				l ⟨l⟩
Semivowel		w ⟨w⟩

• /r/ is also heard as a tap [ɾ] in free variation.
• A glottal stop /ʔ/ only rarely occurs in some words.
• /β/ is heard as [p̚] before a voiceless stop.
• /k͡pʷ/ is heard as [k͡p] when preceding another consonant.
• Stop sounds /t̪ k/ are aspirated [t̪ʰ kʰ] before vowels.^[9]

Vowels

Vurës has 9 phonemic vowels. These are all short monophthongs /i e ɛ a œ ø y ɔ o/:^[10][11]

Vurës vowels

	Front		Back
	plain	round
Close	i ⟨i⟩	y ⟨u⟩	(ʊ) ⟨u⟩
Close-mid	e ⟨ē⟩	ø ⟨ö⟩	o ⟨ō⟩
Open-mid	ɛ ⟨e⟩	œ ⟨ë⟩	ɔ ⟨o⟩
Open	a ⟨a⟩

• [ʊ] is only a marginal sound that occurs in a small amount of words, mostly borrowings.^[9]
• The vowel inventory also includes a diphthong [i​͡a] ⟨ia⟩.^[12]

Sample text

La masawre i no no gö mörös nana qan̄ris o qiat, nana qēs o ralēt, qēs lēt lēt qēt, na van me, na sēs o um. Na sēs qēt o um, nana le o ralēt, na tuwegev. No mö tuwegev kal qēt, nana bun kēl o vet ni van lē m̄ēkē qan̄ris, bun bun qēt o vet, mē qēt na ukëg o ev ni ës ti.

'When I want to bake taro, I break up the firewood, break up all the firewood, then I come and I take the stones out of the oven. I take out all the stones from the oven, I get the firewood, and I make the fire. I build up the fire, then I put the stones back on top of the oven, I put all the stones back, then I leave the fire to smoke.'^[13]