Olrat language
Austronesian language spoken in Vanuatu
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Olrat is an extinct Oceanic language of Gaua island, in northern Vanuatu. It became extinct in 2009 with the death of its last speaker, Maten Womal.[1]
| Olrat | |
|---|---|
| Ōlrat | |
| Pronunciation | [ʊlrat] |
| Native to | Vanuatu |
| Region | Gaua |
| Extinct | 2009, with the death of Maten Womal[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | olr |
| Glottolog | olra1234 |
| ELP | Olrat |
 Olrat was classified as Critically Endangered by the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2010), but more recent sources reveal it is now extinct.[1] | |
Name
The name Olrat (spelled natively as Ōlrat [ʊlrat]) is an endonym. Robert Codrington mentions a place south of Lakon village under the Mota name Ulrata.[2] A few decades later, Sidney Ray mentions the language briefly in 1926 under the name Ulrata ‒ but provides no linguistic information.[3]
Speakers
In 2003, only three speakers of Olrat remained, who lived on the middle-west coast of Gaua.[4][5] Their community had left their inland hamlet of Olrat in the first half of the 20th century, and merged into the larger village of Jōlap where Lakon is dominant.[4][1]
Alexandre François identifies Olrat as a distinct language from its immediate neighbor Lakon, on phonological,[6] grammatical,[7] and lexical[8] grounds.
Phonology
Olrat has 14 phonemic vowels. These include 7 short /i ɪ ɛ a ɔ ʊ u/ and 7 long vowels /iː ɪː ɛː aː ɔː ʊː uː/.[9][1]
Historically, the phonologization of vowel length originates in the compensatory lengthening of short vowels when the voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ was lost syllable-finally.[10]
Grammar
The system of personal pronouns in Olrat contrasts clusivity, and distinguishes four numbers (singular, dual, trial, plural).[11]
Spatial reference in Olrat is based on a system of geocentric (absolute) directionals, which is typical of Oceanic languages.[12]