Southwest Tanna language

Southwest Tanna is a dialect chain spoken on the southwestern coast of Tanna Island in Vanuatu. Lynch (1982) names three major dialects: Nivhaal in the north-west of the language area (spelt "Nauvhal" in publicity for the 2015 film Tanna), Nivai in the south-west, and Nelpwaai in the north-east.^[2]

Southwest Tanna
Nawal
Native to	Vanuatu
Region	Tanna Island
Native speakers	4,500 (2011)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic South Vanuatu Tanna Southwest Tanna
Language codes
ISO 639-3	nwi
Glottolog	sout2869
Southwest Tanna is not endangered according to the classification system of the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

References

1. Southwest Tanna at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. John Lynch (1982). "South-West Tanna Grammar Outline and Vocabulary". Papers in Linguistics of Melanesia. 4.

External links

• Database of audio recordings in language of Tanna, Southwest - basic Catholic prayers
• Paradisec has two collections of Arthur Cappell's materials (AC1, AC2) that include Southwest Tanna language materials.
• Nehrbass's Comprehensive lexicon contains data on the dialects of the Southwest Tanna language ()