Gela (Eng. pron. /ɡeɪlɑː/ GAY-lah), also known as Nggela [ᵑgela][2] and formerly as Florida,[3] is an Oceanic language spoken in the Nggela Islands, in the middle of the Solomon Islands. It belongs to the Southeast Solomonic group of the Oceanic family.
Gela | |
---|---|
Nggela | |
Native to | Central Solomon Islands |
Region | Big Nggela, Small Nggela, Sandfly and Buenavista Islands |
Native speakers | (12,000 cited 1999)[1] |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | nlg |
Glottolog | gela1263 |
Towards the end of the 19th century, Gela was used by the Melanesian Mission of the Anglican Church of Melanesia, as a language of Christianisation[4] ‒ along with Mota, a language of the Banks islands of northern Vanuatu. The first translation of the scriptures in Gela was published in 1882.[3]
The three dialects of Gela are very similar, differing mainly on a small number of phonological points.
Gela has the following consonant phonemes:
Labial | Alveolar | Velar | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||
Stop | p | b | t | d | k | g |
Fricative | v | s | z | ɣ | ||
Approximant | w | l | j | |||
Trill | r |
The fricative /z/ is realized as [ð] in alternation with a retroflex sibilant [ʐ], initially before /a/.[5]
The Gela dominant voiced is "h" not "z". "Z" is found in Savosavo language speakers (and Bugotu and part of Guadalcanal) who also speak Gela - primarily due to their use of the Church of Melanesia Common Prayer Books and Hymns (written in Gela in the 1940s).
Gela uses /i, e, a, o, u/ with no contrastive vowel length.
Stress generally occurs on each word's penultimate syllable.
In general, for two-digit numbers, numbers are expressed as a*10+b, where a and b are numbers ranging from 1 to 9.