Native to Vanuatu Native speakers 9,000 (2001) Glottolog urip1239 | Region Malakula ISO 639-3 upv | |
Language family Austronesian
Malayo-Polynesian
Oceanic
Southern Oceanic
North Vanuatu
Northeast–Banks Islands
Malekula Coastal
Uripiv | ||
Uripiv is a dialect of the language spoken on the north-east coast of Malakula. The language is referred to as Northeast Malakula, or Uripiv-Wala-Rano-Atchin, and is spoken on the islands of Uripiv, Wala, Rano and Atchin and on the mainland opposite to these islands. Uripiv-Wala-Rano-Atchin is spoken today by about 9,000 people. Literacy rate of its speakers in their own language is 10–30%.
Uripiv-Wala-Rano-Atchin forms a dialect chain. The Uripiv dialect is the most southerly of these, and has 85% of its words in common with Atchin, the most northerly dialect.
The Uripiv dialect is one of the few documented languages that use the rare bilabial trill, a feature that is not found in the Atchin dialect.
References
Uripiv language Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA