The nine South Vanuatu languages form a family of the Southern Oceanic languages, spoken in Tafea Province (Tanna, Aneityum, Futuna, Erromango, and Aniwa) of Vanuatu.
Languages
Erromango family
Southern: Sie, Sorung†
Northern: Ifo (Utaha)†, Ura(See Erromanga language#Linguistic situation for a description) Tanna family Southern: Kwamera (South Tanna), Southwest Tanna Northern: Lenakel (West Tanna), Whitesands (Weasisi, East Tanna), North Tanna Aneityum Aneityum (Anejom̃)
François (2015) François (2015:18–21) lists the following names and locations for the 9 South Vanuatu languages.
Proto-South Vanuatu
Proto-South Vanuatu was reconstructed by John Lynch in 2001.
The language, compared to Proto-Oceanic, went through a series of vowel reductions, leading to the creation of a new vowel written as *ə, such as in *na-waiR "fresh water" resulting in Proto-South Vanuatu *nə-wai of the same meaning.
However, it also preserves some, but not all final consonants. For example, *tanum "to plant, bury" is reflected in Proto-South Vanuatu as *(a)-tenum "to bury", but *taŋis "to cry" is instead reflected as *(a)-taŋi.
Vowels
The vowels of Proto-South Vanuatu, according to Lynch, are:
Consonants
The consonants of Proto-South Vanuatu, according to Lynch, are: { | class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |+Consonants ! colspan="2" | !Labiovelar !Bilabial !Alveolar !Palatal !Velar !Uvular |- ! rowspan="2" |Stop !voiced |* |* |* | |* | |- !voiceless |* |* |* | |* |* |- ! colspan="2" |Nasal |* |* |* | |* | |- ! colspan="2" |Fricative |* | |* |*, * |* | |- ! colspan="2" |Approximant |* | |*, * |* | | |}
References
. Lynch, John. 2001. The linguistic history of southern Vanuatu. (Pacific Linguistics, 509.) Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.