Olrat language
Austronesian language spoken in Vanuatu
title: "Olrat language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["banks–torres-languages", "critically-endangered-languages", "endangered-languages-of-oceania", "torba-province", "extinct-languages-of-vanuatu"] description: "Austronesian language spoken in Vanuatu" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olrat_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 | Olrat |
| nativename | Ōlrat |
| pronunciation | |
| states | Vanuatu |
| region | Gaua |
| speakers | 3 |
| date | 2012 |
| ref | |
| familycolor | Austronesian |
| fam2 | Malayo-Polynesian |
| fam3 | Oceanic |
| fam4 | Southern Oceanic |
| fam5 | North-Central Vanuatu |
| fam6 | North Vanuatu |
| fam7 | Torres-Banks |
| map2 | Lang Status 20-CR.svg |
| mapcaption2 | |
| iso3 | olr |
| glotto | olra1234 |
| :: |
| name = Olrat | nativename = Ōlrat | pronunciation = | states = Vanuatu | region = Gaua | speakers = 3 | date = 2012 | ref = | familycolor = Austronesian | fam2 = Malayo-Polynesian | fam3 = Oceanic | fam4 = Southern Oceanic | fam5 = North-Central Vanuatu | fam6 = North Vanuatu | fam7 = Torres-Banks | map2 = Lang Status 20-CR.svg | mapcaption2 = | iso3 = olr | glotto = olra1234
Olrat was an Oceanic language of Gaua island, in northern Vanuatu. It became extinct in 2009 with the death of its last speaker, Maten Womal.
Name
The name Olrat (spelled natively as Ōlrat ) is an endonym. Robert Codrington mentions a place south of Lakon village under the Mota name Ulrata.See page 378 of: {{cite book |last=Codrington |first=R. H. |author-link=Robert Henry Codrington |year=1885 |title = The Melanesian Languages |volume = 47 |pages = 25–60 |publisher = Clarendon Press |place = Oxford |url= https://archive.org/details/melanesianlangua00codruoft |ref=RHC .
The language
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Alex-Maten-Gaua-2003.jpg" caption="A. François with †Maten Womal, the last storyteller of Olrat ([[Gaua]], [[Vanuatu]], 2003)}}"] ::
In 2003, only three speakers of Olrat remained, who lived on the middle-west coast of Gaua. 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.
Alexandre François identifies Olrat as a distinct language from its immediate neighbor Lakon, on phonological, grammatical, and lexical 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/.
::data[format=table title="Olrat vowels"]
| Front | Back | Near-close | Close-mid | Open-mid | Open | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ∙ | ∙ | |||||
| ∙ | ∙ | |||||
| ∙ | ∙ | |||||
| ∙ | ||||||
| :: |
Historically, the phonologization of vowel length originates in the compensatory lengthening of short vowels when the voiced velar fricative was lost syllable-finally.
Grammar
The system of personal pronouns in Olrat contrasts clusivity, and distinguishes four numbers (singular, dual, trial, plural).
Spatial reference in Olrat is based on a system of geocentric (absolute) directionals, which is typical of Oceanic languages.
References
- [[#pangloss. François (2022)]].
- [https://marama.huma-num.fr/AF-field.htm List of Banks islands languages].
- {{Harvcoltxt. François. 2012.
- {{Harvcoltxt. François. 2005
- {{Harvcoltxt. François. 2007
- {{Harvcoltxt. François. 2011
- {{Harvcoltxt. François. 2005. François. 2011
- {{Harvcoltxt. François. 2005
- [[#pronouns. François (2016)]].
- [[#updown. François (2015)]].
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