Lemerig language

Lemerig
Native to	Vanuatu
Region	Vanua Lava
Native speakers	2 (2010)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic Vanuatu Northern Vanuatu East Vanuatu Lemerig
Language codes
ISO 639-3	lrz
Glottolog	leme1238[2]

Lemerig (sometimes also called Pak, Päk, or Sasar) is an Oceanic language spoken on Vanua Lava, in Vanuatu.

Lemerig is no longer actively spoken. The 2 remaining speakers live on the northern coast of the island.^[3] The language has receded in favour of its neighbours Mwotlap and Vera'a.^[1]

Phonology

Lemerig has 11 phonemic vowels. These are all short monophthongs /i ɪ ɛ æ a œ ø ɒ̝ ɔ ʊ u/.^[4]

Lemerig vowels

	Front		Back
	plain	round
Close	i		u
Near-close	ɪ	ø	ʊ
Open-mid	ɛ	œ	ɔ
Near-open	æ		ɒ̝
Open	a

References

1. François (2012:87).
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Lemerig". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
3. List of Banks islands languages.
4. François (2011:194)

Bibliography

• François, Alexandre (2011), "Social ecology and language history in the northern Vanuatu linkage: A tale of divergence and convergence", Journal of Historical Linguistics 1 (2): 175–246, doi:10.1075/jhl.1.2.03fra.
• François, Alexandre (2012), "The dynamics of linguistic diversity: Egalitarian multilingualism and power imbalance among northern Vanuatu languages", International Journal of the Sociology of Language 214: 85–110, doi:10.1515/ijsl-2012-0022.

External links

• A book of traditional stories, monolingual in Lemerig language.