Dorig language

Not to be confused with Doric Greek or Doric dialect (Scotland).

Dorig (formerly called Wetamut) is a threatened Oceanic language spoken on Gaua island in Vanuatu.

Dorig
Dōrig
Pronunciation	[ⁿdʊˈriɣ]
Native to	Vanuatu
Region	Gaua
Native speakers	300 (2012)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic North-Central Vanuatu North Vanuatu Torres-Banks Dorig
Language codes
ISO 639-3	wwo
Glottolog	weta1242
ELP	Dorig
Dorig is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

The language’s 300 speakers live mostly in the village of Dorig (IPA: [ⁿdʊˈriɰ]), on the south coast of Gaua. Smaller speaker communities can be found in the villages of Qteon (east coast) and Qtevut (west coast).

Dorig's immediate neighbours are Koro and Mwerlap.

Name

The name Dorig is derived from the name of the village where it is spoken.

Phonology

Dorig has 8 phonemic vowels. These include 7 short monophthongs /i ɪ ɛ a ɔ ʊ u/ and one long vowel /aː/.

Dorig vowels

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

Dorig has 15 consonant phonemes.

Dorig consonants

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

The phonotactic template for a syllable in Dorig is: /CCVC/ — e.g. /rk͡pʷa/ ‘woman’ (< *rVᵐbʷai); /ŋ͡mʷsar/ ‘poor’ (< *mʷasara); /wrɪt/ ‘octopus’ (< *ɣurita). Remarkably, the consonant clusters of these /CCVC/ syllables are not constrained by the Sonority Sequencing Principle. Historically, these /CCVC/ syllables reflect former trisyllabic, paroxytone words */CVˈCVCV/, after deletion of the two unstressed vowels: e.g. POc. *kuRíta ‘octopus’ > *wərítə > /wrɪt/.

Grammar

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

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

Bibliography

• François, Alexandre (2005), "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
• —— (2010), "Phonotactics and the prestopped velar lateral of Hiw: Resolving the ambiguity of a complex segment" (PDF), Phonology, 27 (3): 393–434, doi:10.1017/s0952675710000205
• —— (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.
• —— (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
• —— (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.
• —— (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
• —— (2022). "Presentation of the Dorig language, and audio archive". Pangloss Collection. Paris: CNRS. Retrieved 28 Sep 2022.

External links

• Linguistic map of north Vanuatu, showing range of Dorig on Gaua.
• Audio recordings in Dorig language, in open access, by A. François (source: Pangloss Collection).
• A story in Dorig, with audio recording and translation.