Lehali language

Lehali
Loli
Pronunciation	[lɔli]
Native to	Vanuatu
Region	Ureparapara
Native speakers	200 (2010)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic North-Central Vanuatu North Vanuatu Torres-Banks Lehali
Language codes
ISO 639-3	tql
Glottolog	leha1243
ELP	Lehali
Lehali is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.

A speaker of Lehali, recorded in Vanuatu

Lehali (previously known as Teqel) is an Oceanic language spoken by about 200 people, on the west coast of Ureparapara Island in Vanuatu. It is distinct from Löyöp, the language spoken on the east coast of the same island.

Name

The language is named after the village where it is spoken, natively referred to as Loli [lɔli].

Phonology

Lehali phonemically contrasts 16 consonants and 10 vowels.

Consonants

Lehali consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Dorsal	Labialized velar	Glottal
Nasal		m ⟨m⟩	n ⟨n⟩	ŋ ⟨n̄⟩	ŋʷ ⟨n̄w⟩
Stop	voiceless	p ⟨p⟩	t ⟨t⟩	k ⟨k⟩	kʷ ⟨q⟩
	prenasalized		ⁿd ⟨d⟩
Fricative		β ⟨v⟩	s ⟨s⟩	ɣ ⟨g⟩		h ⟨h⟩
Approximant			l ⟨l⟩	j ⟨y⟩	w ⟨w⟩

Vowels

The 10 vowel phonemes are all short monophthongs /i ɪ ɛ æ ə a ɒ̝ ɔ ʊ u/:

Lehali vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i ⟨i⟩		u ⟨u⟩
Near-close	ɪ ⟨ē⟩	ə ⟨ë⟩	ʊ ⟨ō⟩
Open-mid	ɛ ⟨e⟩		ɔ ⟨o⟩
Near-open	æ ⟨ä⟩		ɒ̝ ⟨ö⟩
Open	a ⟨a⟩

Historical phonology

The ⟨y⟩ /j/ phoneme originates in a former trill *r: e.g. /-jɔ/ < POc *rua 'two'. Lehali shares that particular sound change with its neighbors Löyöp, Volow, and Mwotlap.

Grammar

The system of personal pronouns in Lehali contrasts clusivity, and distinguishes four numbers (singular, dual, trial, plural).

Most negative morphemes are discontinuous, wrapped around the predicate phrase: e.g. /tɛt nɛ … tæ/ (Negative realis ‘did/does not’), /tɛt … kʷɔ/ (Nondumitive ‘not yet’), /tɛt … vɪstæ/ (Negative potential ‘cannot’). Historically, this pattern reflects an instance of Jespersen's cycle.

Spatial reference in Lehali is based on a system of geocentric (absolute) directionals, which is in part typical of Oceanic languages, and yet innovative.

Bibliography

• François, Alexandre (2011). "Social ecology and language history in the northern Vanuatu linkage: A tale of divergence and convergence" (PDF). Journal of Historical Linguistics. 1 (2): 175–246. doi:10.1075/jhl.1.2.03fra. hdl:1885/29283. S2CID 42217419.
• —— (2012). "The dynamics of linguistic diversity: Egalitarian multilingualism and power imbalance among northern Vanuatu languages" (PDF). International Journal of the Sociology of Language (214): 85–110. doi:10.1515/ijsl-2012-0022. S2CID 145208588.
• —— (2015). "The ins and outs of up and down: Disentangling the nine geocentric space systems of Torres and Banks languages" (PDF). In François, Alexandre; Lacrampe, Sébastien; Franjieh, Michael; Schnell, Stefan (eds.). The languages of Vanuatu: Unity and diversity. Studies in the Languages of Island Melanesia. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics. pp. 137–195. hdl:1885/14819. ISBN 978-1-922185-23-5.
• —— (2016). "The historical morphology of personal pronouns in northern Vanuatu" (PDF). In Pozdniakov, Konstantin (ed.). Comparatisme et reconstruction : tendances actuelles. Faits de Langues. Vol. 47. Bern: Peter Lang. pp. 25–60.
• —— (2021). "Presentation of the Lehali language and audio archive". Pangloss Collection. Paris: CNRS. Retrieved 21 Feb 2022.
• —— (2026). "Negation in Dorig" (PDF). In Miestamo, Matti; Veselinova, Ljuba (eds.). Negation in the World's Languages. Research on Comparative Grammar 9. Vol. 3. Berlin: Language Science Press. pp. 73–128. doi:10.5281/zenodo.18234067. ISBN 978-3-96110-554-0.

External links

• Audio recordings in the Lehali language, in open access, by A. François (Pangloss Collection).