Äiwoo language

Äiwoo (/ˈeɪwoʊ, ˈaɪ-/ AY-woh, EYE-) is an Oceanic language spoken on the Santa Cruz Islands and the Reef Islands in the Temotu Province of the Solomon Islands.

Äiwoo
Reef
Pronunciation	[æiwoː]
Native to	Solomon Islands
Region	Santa Cruz Islands, eastern Solomons, Temotu Province.
Native speakers	(8,400 cited 1999)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Temotu ? Reefs – Santa Cruz Äiwoo
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	nfl
Glottolog	ayiw1239
ELP	Äiwoo
Coordinates: 10°13′S 166°12′E

Name

The Äiwoo language has been known under many names in the literature, including: Aŷiwo, Ayiwo, Aïwo, Gnivo, Lanlom, Lomlom, Naaude, Nifilole, Nivo, Reef Islands, and Reefs.

Speakers and distribution

Äiwoo has roughly 8,400 native speakers with roughly 5,000-6,000 of these living on the Reef islands and the rest living on the Santa Cruz islands. As such, Äiwoo is the largest of the Reef Islands – Santa Cruz languages. Most speakers live on the Ngawa and Ngäsinue islands in the Reef Islands; others live in some villages on Vanikoro or on Nendö, like Kala Bay. Finally, some communities have recently been established in the capital Honiara, notably in the White River district.

Sociolinguistics

On the Reef islands, Äiwoo is the primary language spoken by all of its people. Most of them also speak Pijin, the lingua franca of the Solomon Islands, while only a few people also speak English. The schooling system uses Äiwoo on the primary and secondary school level, though a standardized orthography for Äiwoo has not yet been adopted, resulting in a decline of people who can read and write.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial		Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
		plain	rounded
Nasal	voiced	m	mʷ	n	ɲ	ŋ
Stop	prenas.	ᵐb	ᵐbʷ	ⁿd	ⁿd͡ʒ	ᵑg
	voiceless	p	pʷ	t		k
Fricative				s
Approximant		ʋ	w	l

• Voiced stops are prenasalized by default, but can be realized plain oral: e.g. /ᵐbʷ/ is realized [ᵐbʷ] ~ [bʷ].
• The voiced labio-dental approximant /ʋ/ may also be realized as a fricative [v].
• /s/ can also be heard as an affricate [t͡s].
• /t/ can also be heard as rhotic sounds [ɾ, r] within words.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid	e		o
Near-open	æ
Open		a	ɑ ~ ɒ

Orthography

Äiwoo uses a variation of the Latin alphabet. The following spelling conventions are taken from Næss’ dictionary of Äiwoo.

Äiwoo orthography	a	ä	â	b	bw	d	e	g	i	j	k	l	m	mw	n	ng	ny	o	p	pw	s	t	u	v	w
IPA	a	æ	ɑ, ɒ	ᵐb, b	ᵐbʷ, bʷ	ⁿd, d	e	ᵑg, g	i	ⁿd͡ʒ, d͡ʒ	k	l	m	mʷ	n	ŋ	ɲ	o	p	pʷ	s, t͡s	t, ɾ, r	u	ʋ, v	w

Note that Äiwoo distinguishes ä [æ] and â [ɑ,ɒ], both of which appear in the word kânongä 'I want'.

Word classes

Nouns

Nouns are used to describe a person, place or thing. Nouns in Äiwoo can be paired with a suffix to show a possessive case. An example of this is tumo 'my father'. Other nouns in Äiwoo can be followed by a possessive particle, as in kuli nou 'my dog'.

Bound nouns

Bound nouns are one subtype of nouns; they act like nouns but cannot be used by themselves and need to be paired with a verb, possessive case, or another noun instead.

Local nouns

Local nouns are another subtype of nouns, but are not like regular nouns because they can be used to indicate location without a preposition.

ex:

ngä:

ikuwä

ngââgu

ngä: ikuwä ngââgu

‘I’m going to the bush.’

Verbs

Verbs in Äiwoo are divided into three different classes: intransitive verbs, A-verbs, and O-verbs.

Intransitive verbs

These combine only with one noun or pronoun to form a sentence but also take a prefix to indicate an action.

ex:

ikuwä

ikuwä

‘I go’

A-Verbs

Similarly to intransitive verbs, A-verbs take a prefix to indicate an action; however, they combine with another noun or pronoun.

ex:

ikiläke

näte

ikiläke näte

‘I’m chopping firewood.’

O-Verbs

Different from intransitive verbs, O-verbs take suffixes to say who is performing the action with the noun and pronoun.

ex:

nyenaa

eângâ

kiläkino

nyenaa eângâ kiläkino

‘I chop down the tree.’

Phonological structure of verbs

There are no verbs that start with the sounds a, ä, â, or o. The majority of verbs in Äiwoo begin with the phoneme /e/ followed by a vowel, as e.g. eâmoli ‘to look’.

Verbal derivation

Verbs beginning with the phonemes /v/ and /w/ are defined as causative verbs. Causative verbs are made by combining a causative prefix to the letters /v/ and /w/. In the Äiwoo language, the two causative prefixes are wâ- and vä-.

ex:

wânubo

wânubo

‘kill'

Prepositions

In the Äiwoo language, ngä and go are two important prepositions. ngä translates to 'in, at, on, to, from', while go corresponds to 'for, with, because of'.

Pronouns

Pronouns are words that take the place of nouns. An example of a pronoun is iu ‘I’.

Possessive Markers

Possessive markers are used after a noun to show the possessor of a person, place or thing.

ex:

nenu

numo

nenu numo

‘my coconut’

Relational markers

Similarly to possessive markers, relational markers are used to show relations between a noun and something else.

ex:

sime

lä

nuumä

sime lä nuumä

‘a person from the village’

Demonstratives

Äiwoo demonstrative can cover several syntactic functions, but all share the property of distinguishing between a ‘here, close by’ and a ‘there, far away’ form.

Conjunctions

Conjunctions are used to link together phrases or clauses.

ex:

eä

eä

‘and’

Quantifiers

Quantifiers are words that are used to show quantity.

ex:

du

du

‘all’

Interjections

Interjections are adjectives that are used by themselves without the need of other descriptive words.

ex:

sikäi

sikäi

'Oh!'

Morphology

Intransitive subject forms

In the Äiwoo language, lu- and li- are closely related to the verb stem and are thus the oldest subject prefixes still used. The other subject prefixes that follow after lu- and li- are newer, created other syntactic roles. However, one exclusion to the list of new subject prefixes are with i.

Transitive subject forms

Transitive subject forms are suffixed. In addition, transitive subject forms have possessive-like forms.

Nominalizing prefixes

There are eight different nominalizing prefixes that are combined with a verb to create a noun which describes a person, thing, or place. These prefixes are:

mi-	'one who/which'
gi-	'human male'
si-	'human female'
me-	'human'
pe-	'human collective'
nye-	'place'
de-	'thing, instrument'
nyi-	'way, manner'

Class prefixes

In the Äiwoo language, class prefixes are combined with a noun or verb.

Gender marking prefixes

Äiwoo gender marking prefixes can be traced back to their Oceanic origin. To create a gender marking prefix, gi- and si- from the nominalizing prefixes are combined with nouns.

Syntax

The Äiwoo language follows the word order OVS or Object-Verb-Subject.

Transitivity

In Äiwoo, three different verbal clauses are distinguished: intransitive, transitive, and semitransitive. The main difference between these three verbal clauses is that intransitives concern only one person while transitives and semitransitives concern more than one person.

In Oceanic languages, intransitive clauses follow the subject and verb format. Transitive clauses follow the order object, verb, subject. Semitransitive clauses use intransitive verbs with subject and object, resulting in a structured phrase order of subject, verb, object.

External links

• Paradisec has a collection of Äiwoo recordings. They also have a collection of Stephen Wurm's recordings, which includes some Äiwoo material.

Bibliography

• Næss, Åshild (2006). "Bound Nominal Elements in Äiwoo (Reefs): A Reappraisal of the 'Multiple Noun Class Systems'". Oceanic Linguistics. 45 (2): 269–296. doi:10.1353/ol.2007.0006.
• Ross, Malcolm & Åshild Næss (2007). "An Oceanic Origin for Aiwoo, the Language of the Reef Islands?". Oceanic Linguistics. 46 (2): 456–498. doi:10.1353/ol.2008.0003. hdl:1885/20053.
• Næss, Åshild & Brenda H. Boerger (2008). "Reefs – Santa Cruz as Oceanic: Evidence from the Verb Complex". Oceanic Linguistics. 47: 185–212. doi:10.1353/ol.0.0000. hdl:1959.13/1052427.
• Næss, Åshild (2017). A short dictionary of Äiwoo. Studies in the Languages of Island Melanesia. Canberra: Asia–Pacific Linguistics. 214 pp. hdl:1885/112469. ISBN 9781922185372.