Big Nambas (native name V'ənen Taut) is an Oceanic language spoken by about 3,400 people (as of 2001[update]) in northwest Malekula, Vanuatu. Approximately nineteen villages in the Big Nambas region of the Malekula Interior use the language exclusively with no variation in dialect. It was studied in-depth over a period of about 10 years by missionary Greg. J. Fox, who published a grammar and dictionary in 1979. A Big Nambas translation of the Bible has been completed recently by Andrew Fox.
Big Nambas | |
---|---|
V'ənen Taut | |
Pronunciation | [ˈθ̼ənɛn tautʰ] |
Native to | Vanuatu |
Region | Northwest Malekula |
Native speakers | 3,400 (2001)[1] |
Latin script | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | nmb |
Glottolog | bign1238 |
Big Nambas is not endangered according to the classification system of the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
The consonant phonemes of Big Nambas are as shown in the following table:
Bilabial | Linguolabial | Alveolar | Velar | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n̼ / m̺ | n | ||
Plosive | voiced | ⁿd | |||
voiceless | p | t̼ / p̺ | t | k | |
Fricative | voiced | β | ð̼ / β̺ | ɣ | |
voiceless | s | ||||
Liquid | rhotic | r | |||
lateral | l |
Big Nambas has a 5-vowel system with the following phonemes:
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | u uː | |
Mid | e | ə | |
Open | a aː |
Big Nambas has a complex syllable structure with a large amount of consonant clusters possible. Additionally, clusters of up to four vowels are permitted (e.g. nauei "water"). Stress in Big Nambas is phonemic, but partly predictable. The consonants /t β r l n/ all exhibit phonemic gemination when two identical ones occur between syllables. Linguolabial consonants are often marked with an apostrophe in the orthography to distinguish them from their bilabial counterparts.
Big Nambas is a synthetic, head-marking language.
Nouns in Big Nambas are capable of phrasal expansion. There are three noun classes in Big Nambas:
Big Nambas features a system of complex nouns, formed by derivation. Derived nouns can be of one of five types:
Nouns in Big Nambas may be compounded by following them with a verb stem.
dəh-
tail-be
uas
yellow
"yellow-tail (fish)"