Aneityum language

The alternate names for Aneityum are Anejom̃, Anejom, Aneiteum, Aneiteumese, Aneytum and Annatom. == Classification ==

Anejom̃ is part of the Austronesian language family, and is part of the large subgroup of Oceanic languages. Anejom̃ falls under the Southern Oceanic Languages subgroup, and more specifically Southern Vanuatuan Languages. Its closest relatives are preliminarily thought to be more closely related to the languages of Tanna (e.g. Kwamera, South-West Tanna, Lenakel) than Erromango languages. == Geography ==

The island of Aneityum is the southernmost inhabited island of the nation of Vanuatu. It is closest to the islands of Tanna and Futuna. The island's geographic location made Anejom̃ develop in isolation. The first speakers of the language are believed to have lived on hillsides near coasts in order to access resources. However, due to land degradation and population pressure, the speakers moved to the valleys. == History ==

Aneityum is thought to have been settled around 874 BCE ± 60 years by people coming over from Tanna. Original settlers (and speakers of the language) are thought to have lived on hillsides near the coasts in order to access resources from the ocean and land. However, the combination of land degradation and population forced the Aneityumese to move onto valley flats instead. Church presence Like much of the rest of Melanesia, the church has played an important role in language ideology on Aneityum. The first missionaries to land on the island were Samoan Presbyterians who arrived in 1841. After them followed European Presbyterian missionaries who established themselves in 1848. The missionary presence on the island was so prevalent that the island was considered the "first successfully missionized island in Melanesia" and housed the headquarters of the Presbyterian Mission to the New Hebrides. The missions on Aneityum promoted the use of English. Colonialization Vanuatu came under joint British and French rule in 1887, which then became formalized in 1906 where Vanuatu became known as the "Anglo-French Condominium". Colonialization along with the big mission presence on the island led to the languages of French and English to become prestige languages. Other languages of Vanuatu also became prestigious (such as Nguna) because these language were chosen by missionaries to spread their teachings. With prolonged contact with English speakers, another language also arose: Bislama. Bislama, a pidgin of English, is now an extremely widely used language and has had a huge role in language change within Anejom̃. == Phonology and orthography ==

Phonemes Anejom̃ has 5 vowels and 20 or 21 consonants. The sound [ʔ] is sometimes counted as phoneme. It was considered to be a fairly good orthography of its time (having a one-to-one correspondence between letters and phonemes); however, it did contain several key problems. • It did not distinguish between /pʷ/ and /p/ and /mʷ/ and /m/. • The phoneme /ɲ/ was not always written as a separate letter from other nasal phonemes. It also occurs as an allophone before vowels that occur in the word initial position. Voicing Stops and affricates in Anejom̃ change in voicing depending on where they occur between segments as described and illustrated below. • Between vowels, labial stops become voiced. Other stops (and affricates) are partially voiced. • Single vowel sounds /ɪ ʊ/ occur as tense [i u] in word-final position. • /i e/ occur as centralized [ɨ ə] before and after /ɣ/. • /a/ very often assimilates before a following high vowel, becoming [æ] or [ɛ] before /i/, and [ɒ] or [ɔ] before /u/. ==Morphology==

Pronouns There are three types of pronouns in Anejom̃: personal, demonstrative, and interrogative pronouns. Focal pronouns • The focal pronouns aek and aen are only used in writing or when a speaker speaks slowly. Most of the time the pronouns aak and aan, respectively, are used instead (and are generally pronounced with short vowels instead of long vowels). {{interlinear|indent=3 Object pronouns Object pronouns are free morphemes and occur after verbs and certain "case-marking prepositions" as seen below. See below: {{interlinear|indent=3 Interrogative pronouns There are two interrogative pronouns in Anejom̃: di ('who') and panid and its less widely used alternate, panida ('which'). {{interlinear|indent=3 Panid and panida can only be used to refer to inanimate objects. {{interlinear|indent=3 Nouns Anejom̃ has several categories for nouns: temporal, locative, personal, obligatorily possessed and optionally possessed nouns. The latter two categories (obligatorily possessed and optionally possessed nouns), are further distinguished based on animacy (as seen below). Temporal nouns Examples of common temporal nouns can be seen below. Locative nouns Locative nouns in Anejom̃ do not need the case marker "a" to occur in front of it as shown in the example below. {{interlinear|indent=3 Locative nouns also include the following words: Most of the obligatorily possessed nouns are kinship terms. Animate nouns are usually marked by using the subject marker "a" for singular and the prefix "elpu-" for plural. • Inta- is used sparingly compared to the other prefixes. Most of the time, instrumental nouns are compounds that include the word '''nitai','' which is most likely where inta comes from. The other approximate 15% of nouns that don't use this prefix tend to be highly specific groups of nouns. Noun suffixes Direct possession In Anejom̃, the possessive form of personal pronouns are attached directly to the noun when "the possessor is a personal pronoun". {{interlinear|indent=3 Indirect possession For all other nouns that cannot be directly possessed, a "possessive or construct suffix is added to a possessive marker" as seen below. {{interlinear|indent=3 Verbs Verbs in Anejom̃ are words that can occur as the head of a verb phrase. In Anejom̃, verbs are distinguished by transitivity; there are transitive, intransitive and (the family small class of) ambi-transitive verbs. Examples of these verbs can be seen below. • Many transitive verbs also have intransitive pairings as can be seen by the two verbs that mean 'to eat' in the table above. The verbs yek and isp̃a Both of these verbs are unusual in that they do not follow the regular pattern. Yek: to be at, be present Yek is an existential verb that is different from the majority of Anejom̃ verbs in a number of ways. • The root of yek changes irregularly in the singular, dual and trial forms. • The verb does not take subject-tense markers, though it does take certain aspect-mood markers. The vowel (i) is only added if it occurs before a consonant. Object suffixes for transitive verbs Not including the verbs which take possessive suffixes, there are three main types of ways in which transitive verbs are marked. The types of verbs are: 1) unmarked verbs, 2) "verbs that take the transitive suffix "-i" with all objects", 3) verbs that only take "-i" with animate objects and "-ñ" with inanimate objects. Directional and locational verb suffixes These suffixes attach to the end of the verb and will come after a transitive suffix if one occurs. Distance suffixes have to combine with horizontal or vertical suffixes; they cannot be alone. In Anejom̃, subject-tense-aspect marking is undergoing radical change. Mood, aspect, tense Markers Anejom̃ has several markers (different from the subject-markers) which indicate a variety of mood, aspect and tense. Compounding Compounding is a key historical and modern feature of Anejom̃; it has both compound nouns and compound verbs. Compound nouns generally consist of a noun followed by either a noun, verb, modifier or a possessive construction, and compound verbs tend to be a combination of two verbs, although sometimes a verb is followed by a noun. Compounding is so prevalent, that historical linguistics use modern (as well as fossilized compounds) to trace genealogical relationships between Oceanic languages. Another one of the key uses of compounding in Anejom̃ is that it is used to form the instrumental case. Examples of compounding can be seen below. == Syntax ==

Anejom̃ word order is fairly strict and does not allow for much variation. The preferred word order in Anejom̃ is VOS (or verb, followed by object, then subject). This word order is extremely unusual within the languages of Vanuatu and makes Anejom̃ the "only non-Polynesian language in Vanuatu to have this preferred word order." Below are a couple of examples of intransitive and transitive sentences. Indicating time and place Temporal phrases can be marked with or without a case depending on the phrase. Unmarked phrases Unmarked temporal phrases take a temporal noun and unmarked locative phrases take either a locative noun or a locative demonstrative. There are two types of local demonstratives: the first type is the one seen in the table below and the second is formed adding locative suffixes (see table earlier on page) to the root '''au'.'' For non-personal place phrases, the case marker u is used instead. Content questions Unlike yes/no questions, content questions use interrogative morphemes such as: • "simple clause chaining" • conjunctions • using am̃ and p̃ar • the "echo-subject proclitic m- • verb serialization Simple clause chaining In simple clause chaining, no conjunctions are markings are used to link two separate clauses together. Simple clause chaining can be used either for clauses of the same or different subject and for both verbal and verbless clauses. {{interlinear|indent=3 Conjunctions There are three conjunctions that combine clauses in Anejom̃: ka, '''jai','' and jam which are the equivalents of 'or', 'but' and 'but' respectively. 'Ka' {{interlinear|indent=3 Jai and jam have the same meaning, however jai is used when the subjects of the two combining clauses are different and jam is used when the two combining subjects are the same. It can also denote continuous aspect. For example: {{interlinear|indent=3 == Sample texts ==

• http://paradisec.org.au/fieldnotes/image_viewer.htm?ANEIT309,3 • • • • Lynch, John and Philip Tepahae (2001). Anejom̃ dictionary. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics ==Notes==