Dictionary And Grammar Of The Language Of Saa And Ulawa Solomon Islands

Author : Walter G. Ivens
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781331129035
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (29 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Dictionary and Grammar of the Language of Sa A and Ulawa, Solomon Islands (Classic Reprint) written by Walter G. Ivens and published by . This book was released on 2015-06-28 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Dictionary and Grammar of the Language of Sa a and Ulawa, Solomon Islands The two languages, Sa'a and Ulawa, of which a dictionary is here presented, belong to one of the Melanesian groups of the Oceanic family of languages. Ulawa is the language spoken in the ten villages of the small island of Ulawa, the Contrariete Island of the charts, in the southeast Solomons. Sa'a is spoken in its purity in the village of the same name, the last inhabited place on the southeast extremity of the large island of Malaita, which lies some 30 miles west of Ulawa. Malaita is composed of two islands, commonly called Big and Little Malaita, separated by a narrow channel designated Mara Masiki Channel on the Admiralty chart, but called Laloi Su'u (literally "within-the-inlet") by the people who use the languages presented here. Sa'a is situated on the Malaita coast exactly opposite Ulawa, and there is constant communication between the two places during the calmer weather after the dropping of the southeast trade winds. The two languages are evidently from a common stock and are so closely allied that it has been found quite possible in the present work to adjust the various details to the same scheme of treatment, both as to grammar and vocabulary. Of the two, Sa'a is far more highly specialized than Ulawa. This specialization is shown: 1. In the use of nouns in the singular number, and particularly of such as are the names of parts of the body, without the definite article nga being prefixed. 2. In the very careful observance of the phonetic rule that the vowel a changes to e in certain words after a preceding i or u or after the verbal particle ko. 3. In the very frequent use of the gerundive. 4. In the richer vocabulary and in the employment of words not used in Ulawa in order to avoid uncertainty in meaning, e. g., Sa'a nume house, nime bowl, where Ulawa employs nima for both; Sa'a domu to fall (of persons only) in addition to 'usu, where Ulawa has only 'usu for both. 5. In the fuller forms of the pronoun used as subject of the verb and in the more particular and careful use of the quasi-trinal forms ending in -lu. 6. In the dropping of an inner consonant in the reduplication of stems. The name of Contrariete Island is Ulawa and not Ulava or Ulaua, as is sometimes found; the language has no v sound, and in Lau, where w changes to q (kw), the island is known as Ulaqa. The number of persons who live on Ulawa and who speak Ulawa is not more than 1,200 at the outside; but the language has a certain and considerable extrinsic importance in view of the fact that a number of villages on Ugi, the island lying off the east coast of San Cristoval, have Ulawa teachers and are using Ulawa books. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."