Lehali language

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Austronesian language spoken in Vanuatu

title: "Lehali language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["banks–torres-languages", "languages-of-vanuatu", "vulnerable-languages"] description: "Austronesian language spoken in Vanuatu" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehali_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Austronesian language spoken in Vanuatu ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]

Field	Value
name	Lehali
nativename	Loli
pronunciation
states	Vanuatu
region	Ureparapara
speakers	200
date	2010
ref
familycolor	Austronesian
fam2	Malayo-Polynesian
fam3	Oceanic
fam4	Southern Oceanic
fam5	North-Central Vanuatu
fam6	North Vanuatu
fam7	Torres-Banks
iso3	tql
glotto	leha1243
glottorefname	Lehali
map	Lang Status 80-VU.svg
mapcaption
::

Lehali (previously known as Teqel) is an Oceanic language spoken by about 200 people, on the west coast of Ureparapara Island in Vanuatu. It is distinct from Löyöp, the language spoken on the east coast of the same island.

Name

The language is named after the village where it is spoken, natively referred to as Loli . The name Lehali does not have any etymological value, other than being a corruption of the native name.

Phonology

Lehali phonemically contrasts 16 consonants and 10 vowels.

Consonants

:{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |+ Lehali consonants !colspan="2"| ! Bilabial ! Alveolar ! Dorsal ! Labialized velar ! Glottal |- !colspan="2"| Nasal |
|
|
|
| |- !rowspan="2"| Stop ! voiceless |
|
|
|
| |- ! prenasalized | |
| | | |- !colspan="2"| Fricative |
|
|
| |
|- !colspan="2"| Approximant | |
|
|
| |}

Vowels

The 10 vowel phonemes are all short monophthongs :

:{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |+ Lehali vowels ! | ! |Front ! |Central ! |Back |- ! Close |
| |
|- ! Near-close |
| rowspan="2" |
|
|- ! Open-mid |
|
|- ! Near-open |
| |
|- ! Open | colspan="3" |
|}

Historical phonology

The /j/ phoneme originates in a former trill *r: e.g. /-jɔ/

Grammar

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

Spatial reference in Lehali is based on a system of geocentric (absolute) directionals, which is in part typical of Oceanic languages, and yet innovative.

References

Bibliography

{{cite journal |last=François |first=Alexandre |author-link = Alexandre François (linguist) |year=2011 |title=Social ecology and language history in the northern Vanuatu linkage: A tale of divergence and convergence |journal=Journal of Historical Linguistics |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=175–246 |doi=10.1075/jhl.1.2.03fra |url=https://marama.huma-num.fr/data/AlexFrancois_2011_JHL1-2_Social-ecology_Vanuatu.pdf |hdl=1885/29283 |s2cid=42217419 |hdl-access=free
{{cite journal |last=François |first=Alexandre |author-mask=2 |year=2012 |title=The dynamics of linguistic diversity: Egalitarian multilingualism and power imbalance among northern Vanuatu languages |journal=International Journal of the Sociology of Language |volume=2012 |issue=214 |doi=10.1515/ijsl-2012-0022 |pages=85–110 |s2cid=145208588 |url=https://marama.huma-num.fr/data/AlexFrancois_2012_NorthVanuatuSocioling_IJSL.pdf
{{Cite book | publisher = Asia-Pacific Linguistics | isbn = 978-1-922185-23-5 | pages = 137–195 |editor=Alexandre François |editor2=Sébastien Lacrampe |editor3=Michael Franjieh |editor4=Stefan Schnell | last = François | first = Alexandre |author-mask=2 | title = The languages of Vanuatu: Unity and diversity | chapter = The ins and outs of up and down: Disentangling the nine geocentric space systems of Torres and Banks languages | location = Canberra | series = Studies in the Languages of Island Melanesia | url = http://hdl.handle.net/1885/14819 | contribution-url= https://marama.huma-num.fr/data/AlexFrancois_2015_North-Vanuatu-space-directionals.pdf | date = 2015| hdl = 1885/14819
{{cite book |last=François |first=Alexandre |author-mask=2 |year=2016 |contribution = The historical morphology of personal pronouns in northern Vanuatu |editor1-last = Pozdniakov |editor1-first = Konstantin |title = Comparatisme et reconstruction : tendances actuelles |volume = 47 |pages = 25–60 |publisher = Peter Lang |place = Bern |series = Faits de Langues |contribution-url= https://marama.huma-num.fr/data/AlexFrancois_2016_History-personal-pronouns_north-Vanuatu_published.pdf
{{cite web |url=https://pangloss.cnrs.fr/corpus/Lehali?lang=en&mode=pro&seeMore=true |title=Presentation of the Lehali language and audio archive |last=François |first=Alexandre |author-mask=2 |author-link= |date=2021 |website=Pangloss Collection |location=Paris |publisher=CNRS |access-date=21 Feb 2022 |quote= |ref=pangloss}}

References

A rough translation can be found in the comments to the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chsL-GSpTBc Youtube version] of this video.
[https://marama.huma-num.fr/AF-field.htm#Vanuatu List of Banks islands languages].
[[#pangloss. François (2021)]].

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