A Grammar of South Efate
Title | A Grammar of South Efate PDF eBook |
Author | Nicholas Thieberger |
Publisher | University of Hawaii Press |
Pages | 418 |
Release | 2006-07-31 |
Genre | Foreign Language Study |
ISBN | 082483061X |
This book presents topics in the grammar of South Efate, an Oceanic language of Central Vanuatu as spoken in Erakor village on the outskirts of PortVila. It is one of the first such grammars to take seriously the provision of primary data for the verification of claims made in the analysis. The research is set in the context of increasing attention being paid to the state of the world’s smaller languages and their prospects for being spoken into the future. In addition to providing an outline of the grammar of the language, the author describes the process of developing an archivable textual corpus that is used to make example sentences citable and playable, using software (Audiamus) developed in the course of the research. An included DVD provides a dictionary and finderlist, a set of interlinearized example texts and elicited sentences, and playable media versions of most example sentences and of the example texts.
Bislama Reference Grammar
Title | Bislama Reference Grammar PDF eBook |
Author | Terry Crowley |
Publisher | University of Hawaii Press |
Pages | 228 |
Release | 2004-05-31 |
Genre | Foreign Language Study |
ISBN | 9780824828806 |
Bislama is the national language of Vanuatu, the world's most linguistically diverse nation with at least 80 actively spoken Oceanic languages used by about 200,000 people. Bislama began as a plantation pidgin based on English in the nineteenth century, but it has since developed into a unique language with a grammar and vocabulary very different from English. It is one of very few national languages for which there is no readily available reference grammar. This book aims to fill this gap by providing an extensive account of the grammar of Bislama as it is used by ordinary Ni-Vanuatu. It does not, therefore, aim to describe any kind of artificial written norm but sets out to capture a range of different kinds of ways that Ni-Vanuatu will say things in various contexts, both written and spoken, formal and informal. The thrust of this volume is to show that Bislama has a grammar—an unfamiliar concept for those educated in Vanuatu. It also shows that Bislama is a language of considerable complexity, which will come as a surprise to many of its users, who have been taught to view their language as somehow "simple" and even "deficient."
Bislama
Title | Bislama PDF eBook |
Author | Darrell T. Tryon |
Publisher | Pacific Linguistics |
Pages | 290 |
Release | 1987 |
Genre | Foreign Language Study |
ISBN |
A Dictionary of Nafsan, South Efate, Vanuatu
Title | A Dictionary of Nafsan, South Efate, Vanuatu PDF eBook |
Author | Nicholas Thieberger |
Publisher | University of Hawaii Press |
Pages | 211 |
Release | 2021-10-31 |
Genre | Foreign Language Study |
ISBN | 0824890515 |
This is a dictionary of Nafsan, the language spoken in Vanuatu in the south of Efate Island in the villages of Erakor, Pango, and Eratap. Nafsan is one of 130 distinct languages spoken in Vanuatu. Over several decades, linguist Nicholas Thieberger worked in close collaboration with the Erakor community to record this unique language and to refine its written presentation. The resulting publication offers insight into the diversity of meanings available to speakers of Nafsan, providing some 3,400 senses for Nafsan words and an English-Nafsan finderlist. In addition, the book gives an overview of the Nafsan sound system, provides a list of existing literature on the language dating back to early missionary translations, and includes maps of Efate locating nearly 200 place names. Readers will also find South Efate cultural knowledge embedded in the explanations of the Nafsan words and their usages. A welcome companion to Thieberger’s A Grammar of South Efate (2006), this book complements and significantly augments other multimedia resources made available online by the author.
Languages of Vanuatu
Title | Languages of Vanuatu PDF eBook |
Author | John Lynch |
Publisher | Pacific Linguistics Research Dies Australian National Univ |
Pages | 222 |
Release | 2001 |
Genre | Foreign Language Study |
ISBN |
A New Bislama Dictionary
Title | A New Bislama Dictionary PDF eBook |
Author | Terry Crowley |
Publisher | [email protected] |
Pages | 460 |
Release | 2003 |
Genre | Foreign Language Study |
ISBN | 9789820203624 |
"A new Bislama dictionary is a substantially updated version of the first edition, which reflects the ever-changing vocabulary of Bislama, the national language of Vanuatu."--Back cover.
Beach-la-Mar to Bislama
Title | Beach-la-Mar to Bislama PDF eBook |
Author | Terry Crowley |
Publisher | |
Pages | 456 |
Release | 1990 |
Genre | Foreign Language Study |
ISBN |
Bislama is the variety of Melanesian Pidgin spoken in Vanuatu (formerly New Hebrides). In this learned study, Crowley traces the history and development of Bislama from the 1840s to the present. Drawing on written records and other historical sources, he examines the language's labor history, and discusses the evolution of its grammatical construction.