Unua language

Unua, or Onua, is an Oceanic language spoken in south-east Malekula, Vanuatu. It is said to be a dialect of the same language, Unua-Pangkumu, as Rerep (Pangkumu).^[2]

Unua
Native to	Vanuatu
Region	Malekula
Native speakers	(750 cited 1999)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic North-Central Vanuatu Central Vanuatu Malakula Malakula Coastal Unua-Pangkumu Unua
Language codes
ISO 639-3	onu
Glottolog	unua1237
ELP	Unua
Unua is not endangered according to the classification system of the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Phonology

The following table lists the contrastive consonant sounds of Unua. There are 16 consonant phonemes for younger Unua speakers and an additional three contrastive velarized labial consonants for older speakers, shown below in parentheses.

Consonants

		Bilabial		Coronal	Dorsal
		plain	labial
Nasal		m		n
Plosive	voiceless	p	(pʷ)	t	k
	prenasal	ᵐb	(ᵐbʷ)	ⁿd	ᵑɡ
Affricate				t͡ʃ
Fricative		β	(βʷ)	s	ɣ
Rhotic/Trill		ᵐʙ		ɾ, r
Approximant				l

The following table lists the contrastive vowel sounds of Unua. Younger speakers have five vowel phonemes and older speakers have an additional three, shown in parentheses.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	(ʉ)	u
Mid	e (ø)	(ɵ)	o
Low		a

Grammar

Unua has SVO ordering.

References

1. Unua at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Pearce, Elizabeth (2015). A Grammar of Unua. Boston/Berlin/Munich: De Gruyter Mouton. ISBN 978-1-61451-765-8.