Dorig language

Dorig is a threatened Oceanic language spoken on Gaua island in Vanuatu.
The language's 300 speakers live mostly in the village of Dorig, on the south coast of Gaua. Smaller speaker communities can be found in the villages of Qteon and Qtevut.
Dorig's immediate neighbours are Koro and Mwerlap.

Name

The name Dorig is derived from the name of the village where it is spoken.

Phonology

Dorig has eight phonemic vowels. These include seven short monophthongs and one long vowel.
Dorig has 15 consonant phonemes.

	Labiovelar	Bilabial	Alveolar	Dorsal
Voiceless stop
Prenasalized stop
Nasal
Fricative		~
Rhotic
Lateral
Approximant

The phonotactic template for a syllable in Dorig is: — e.g. ‘woman’ ; ‘poor’ ; ‘octopus’. Remarkably, the consonant clusters of these /CCVC/ syllables are not constrained by the Sonority Sequencing Principle. Historically, these /CCVC/ syllables reflect former trisyllabic, paroxytone words */CVˈCVCV/, after deletion of the two unstressed vowels: e.g. POc. *kuRíta ‘octopus’ > *wərítə >.

Grammar

The system of personal pronouns in Dorig contrasts clusivity, and distinguishes four numbers.
Spatial reference is based on a system of geocentric directionals, which is typical of Oceanic languages.