Nume language

Nume (also called Gog and Tarasag) is an Oceanic language spoken on Gaua island in Vanuatu. Its 700 speakers live on the northeast coast of Gaua.

Nume
Tarasag, Gog
Native to	Vanuatu
Region	Gaua
Native speakers	700 (2012)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic North-Central Vanuatu North Vanuatu Torres-Banks Nume
Language codes
ISO 639-3	tgs
Glottolog	nume1241
ELP	Nume

"Nume" redirects here. Not to be confused with Neume.

Nume is a distinct language from its immediate southern neighbors, Mwerlap and Dorig.

Names

The name Nume originates in the name of a village, now abandoned. Tarasag is currently the community's main village. The alternate name Gog refers to the broader area, and by extension, to the island.

Phonology

Nume has 15 consonant phonemes.

Consonants

	Labiovelar	Bilabial	Alveolar	Dorsal
Voiceless stop	k͡pʷ ⟨q⟩		t ⟨t⟩	k ⟨k⟩
Prenasalized stop		ᵐb ⟨b⟩	ⁿd ⟨d⟩
Fricative		β ⟨v⟩	s ⟨s⟩	ɣ ⟨g⟩
Nasal	ŋ͡mʷ ⟨m̄⟩	m ⟨m⟩	n ⟨n⟩	ŋ ⟨n̄⟩
Rhotic			r ⟨r⟩
Lateral			l ⟨l⟩
Approximant	w ⟨w⟩

• /β/ can also be heard as [ɸ] among speakers.

Nume has 7 phonemic vowels, which are all short monophthongs.

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i ⟨i⟩	u ⟨u⟩
Near-close	ɪ ⟨ē⟩	ʊ ⟨ō⟩
Open-mid	ɛ ⟨e⟩	ɔ ⟨o⟩
Open	a ⟨a⟩

Grammar

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

Spatial reference in Nume is based on a system of geocentric (absolute) directionals, which is typical of Oceanic languages.

Bibliography

• François, Alexandre (2005a), "Unraveling the history of the vowels of seventeen northern Vanuatu languages" (PDF), Oceanic Linguistics, 44 (2): 443–504, doi:10.1353/ol.2005.0034, S2CID 131668754
• 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.
• François, Alexandre (2012), "The dynamics of linguistic diversity: Egalitarian multilingualism and power imbalance among northern Vanuatu languages" (PDF), International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2012 (214): 85–110, doi:10.1515/ijsl-2012-0022, S2CID 145208588
• François, Alexandre (2015). "The ins and outs of up and down: Disentangling the nine geocentric space systems of Torres and Banks languages" (PDF). In Alexandre François; Sébastien Lacrampe; Michael Franjieh; Stefan Schnell (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.
• François, Alexandre (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
• François, Alexandre (2022). "Presentation of the Nume language, and audio archive". Pangloss Collection. Paris: CNRS. Retrieved 20 March 2023.

External links

• Linguistic map of north Vanuatu, showing range of Nume on Gaua.
• Audio recordings in the Nume language, in open access, by A. François (source: Pangloss Collection).
• U Line Tatar Ve Vosog Le Ale Gavrund Simplified Anglican Morning and Evening Prayer in Nume (c. 1965), digitized by Richard Mammana.