Yele language

The Yele language, or (), is the language of Rossel Island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. There were an estimated 5,000 speakers in 2015, comprising the entire ethnic population. It is known for its many doubly articulated consonants. The language remains unclassified by linguists.

Classification

For now, the language is best considered unclassified. It has been classified as a tentative language isolate that may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New Britain (in a tentative Yele – West New Britain family), or alternatively closest to Sudest in the Papuan Tip languages of the Oceanic family. Typologically it is more similar to the Oceanic languages of southern New Guinea than to the isolates of New Britain. Word order tends to be subject–object–verb (SOV; verb-final).

Stebbins et al. (2018) classifies Yélî Dnye as an isolate. They explain similarities with Austronesian as being due to contact and diffusion. Usher classifies it as an Oceanic language, with regular sound correspondences obscured by the development of the doubly articulated consonants.

Phonology

Yele has a uniquely rich set of doubly articulated consonants. In nearly all the languages of the world which have them, these are labial–velar consonants—that is, they are pronounced simultaneously with the lips and the back of the tongue, such as a simultaneous p and k. However, Yele is known to contrast other doubly articulated positions: besides labial–velar, it has two distinct labial–coronal articulations, all as both stops and nasals as illustrated below. There are also doubly articulated approximants: as in (a type of cane) and . The Yele is more precisely a labial–dental , and may also have an allophone of . These doubly articulated consonants do not contrast with labialization except in the case of the labial–velars.

The two coronal articulations are

• laminal denti-alveolar, sometimes transcribed Template:Angbr IPA etc. or simply Template:Angbr IPA etc.,
• sub-apical retroflex, possibly varying as apical post-alveolar, variously transcribed Template:Angbr IPA etc., Template:Angbr IPA etc., or simply Template:Angbr IPA etc.

Palatalization occurs at all places of articulation. Stops may be either pre-nasalized or post-nasalized.

Altogether, there are 58 attested consonants (56 demonstrated with solid minimal pairs) and one more that is somewhat dubious. The attested inventory is as follows:

Consonants

	Labial				Denti-alveolar				Postalveolar/retroflex				Velar			Labial-velar
	plain	lab.	pal.	lab-pal.	plain	lab.	pal.	lab-pal.	plain	lab.	pal.	lab-pal.	plain	lab.	pal.	plain	pal.
Nasal	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink			Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink
Plosive	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Prenasalized plosive
Nasal release									( ?)
Fricative	(Template:IPAlink)		Template:IPAlink										Template:IPAlink
Lateral approximant					Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink
Approximant						Template:IPAlink					Template:IPAlink

The oral stops apart from the dentialveolars are lightly voiced between vowels when the following vowel is short, but not when it is long. is further reduced to a flap . All prenasalized stops are fully voiced. The palatalized denti-alveolar stops and are pronounced as affricates and .

(orthographic dn) is only attested from the inflectional clitic -dniye, and it is not clear that it is distinct from well-attested palatalized (for *-dnyiye) (Levinson 2022:45). Some palatalized and labialized consonants are only attested from a handful of words. A gap in the chart above, (orthographic mdy), is plausible but unattested (Levinson 2022:45). Other gaps, namely and (orthographic ńy and nmy) seem to not exist (Levinson 2022:46).

Yele also has 34 vowels: ten oral qualities and seven nasal, all long and short:

Vowels

	Front				Central				Back
	Oral		Nasal		Oral		Nasal		Oral		Nasal
Close	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink			Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Near-close	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Open-mid	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink							Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
(Near-)open	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink					Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink

Vowels may occur long or short. SIL (1992/2004) interprets vowel sequences as being separated by or rather than being in hiatus. (Possibly redundant y or w are found in the sequences iy and uw followed by most short vowels.) Given that vowels may be long or short, Yele syllables may only be of the form V or CV, with V only being short or at the beginning of a word (assuming lack of hiatus within a word).

Orthography

Orthography	a	â	b	ch	d	e	é	ê	gh	i	î	j	k	l	m	n	ń	o	ó	p	t	u	v	w	y	꞉
IPA

The multigraphs for complex consonants are not always transparent. The labial-velar and labial-coronal consonants are written with the labial second: kp , dp , tp , ngm , nm , ńm , lv . Prenasalized is written mb, but and are written nt and nk to distinguish them from nd and ng . Prenasalized stops are written with an m when labial, including the doubly articulated stops md , mg and mt , and with n otherwise. Nasal release is likewise written n or m, as in dny , kn , dm , km . Labialization is written w, and palatalization y, apart from ch for and nj for .

Of the vowels, only a and u occur initially. Long vowels are written double, and nasal vowels with a preceding colon (꞉a for ), except for short vowels after an orthographic nasal consonant, where vowel nasality is not contrastive.

Grammar

Yele has been studied extensively by cognitive linguists. It has an extensive set of spatial postpositions. Yele has eleven postpositions equivalent to English on; using different ones depending factors such as whether the object is on a table (horizontal), a wall (vertical), or atop a peak; whether or not it is attached to the surface; and whether it is solid or granular (distributed).

Pronouns

Yele has a set of free pronouns and a set of bound possessive pronouns.

		Singular		Dual		Plural
		English	Yele	English	Yele	English	Yele
1st person	free	I		we two		we
	bound
2nd person	free	thou		you two		you
	bound
3rd person	free	he/she	–	they two	–	they
	bound

Taboos and special registers

There are three different types of taboos present in Yélî Dnye: vocabulary avoided by women, vocabulary avoided when in the presence of in-laws, and vocabulary related to sacred places. However, since the language has fallen into disuse, much of this special vocabulary is no longer used.

Additionally, special registers and terms are used when discussing shell money (), at a mortuary feast () and during songs.

Women's language

As a form of women's speech, women avoid certain words, especially those related to the sea. Instead, other words are substituted.

Sample women's language terms

Men's term	Women's term	Gloss
		sea
		sea (locative)
		canoe
		bailer shell
		coconut mat
		fresh water
		Lów꞉a isle

In-laws

Since great respect is shown to in-laws on Rossel Island, speakers of Yélî Dnye will not say their in-laws' names, will only speak of each in-law using the polite third-person plural pronoun , and will replace certain words when speaking near them. While the alternative vocabulary is mostly no longer used, the name and pronoun taboos are still observed.

Most of the taboo words are body parts, clothing or carried possessions. Not all body words are replaced, however: for example, 'neck', 'Adam's apple' and 'stomach' retain their everyday forms.

Sample in-law terms

Everyday term	In-law term	Gloss
		eye
		words
		hand
		belly
		basket
		in front of
		vagina

Vocabulary

Selected basic vocabulary items in Yélî Dnye:

gloss	Yélî Dnye
bird	;
blood
bone
breast
ear
eat
egg
eye
fire	;
give
go	; ;
ground	;
hair
head
leg
louse
man
moon
name
one
road, path
see
sky	;
stone
sun
tongue
tooth
tree
two
water	;
woman	;

Sample text

Yélî Dnye:

Yélî Dnye in the International Phonetic Alphabet:

Translation:

The savage dog is called "Peetuuki", and he lives at Doongê. It's nothing to do with me. It's not my dog. It's Nkal's dog. He raised it. It's a bad dog. It bites everyone. It doesn't like anyone. Recently it bit Mépé's son, Yidika. It really bit him hard. Mépé became very angry, and said, 'I'm going to kill that dog'. The dog ran away into the bush, so Mépé could not kill it. So now it's still there at Doongê, so there's not a safe road through there. That's the end of my story.

(SIL 1992/2004)

External links

• Paradisec has multiple collections with Yele materials, including two collections of Arthur Cappell's materials (AC1, AC2).
• The World Atlas of Language Structures lists 44 typological features of "Yelî Dnye" based on from James Henderson's 1975 and 1995 grammars of the language. https://wals.info/languoid/lect/wals_code_yel