Lakon language

Lakon is an Oceanic language, spoken on the west coast of Gaua island in Vanuatu.

The language name Lakon [laˈkɔn] refers originally to the area where it is spoken ‒ namely Lakona Bay, corresponding to the west coast of Gaua. The alternative name Lakona [lakona] is from the Mota language. These names are derived from a Proto-Torres-Banks form *laᵑgona, of unknown meaning.

Lakon had four dialects, named Qatareu (Qätärew [k​͡pʷætæˈrɛw]), Vure (Vurē [βuˈrɪ]), Toglatareu, and Togla.

Lakon has 16 phonemic consonants.

The glottal stop [ʔ] only occurs before vowels in syllable-initial position. While non-phonemic, it is sometimes noted in the orthography, using a ⟨’⟩ mark.

Lakon has 16 phonemic vowels. These include 8 short /i ɪ ɛ æ a ɔ ʊ u/ and 8 long vowels /iː ɪː ɛː æː aː ɔː ʊː uː/.

Historically, the phonemicisation of vowel length originates in the compensatory lengthening of short vowels when the alveolar trill /r/ was lost syllable-finally. This is considered to be a very recent change, perhaps within the last century, as Codrington still indicates the trill syllable-finally. However, the 1897 Book of Common Prayer in Lakon shows loss of the trill, as evidenced by tataa [taˈtaː] "prayer" (spelled as tata) for Mota tataro.

The system of personal pronouns in Lakon contrasts clusivity, and distinguishes four numbers (singular, dual, trial, plural).

Spatial reference in Lakon is based on a system of geocentric (absolute) directionals, which is typical of Oceanic languages.

• François, Alexandre (2005), "Unraveling the history of the vowels of seventeen northern Vanuatu languages" (PDF), Oceanic Linguistics, 44 (2): 443–504, doi:10.1353/ol.2005.0034, S2CID 131668754
• —— (2011), "Social ecology and language history in the northern Vanuatu linkage: A tale of divergence and convergence" (PDF), Journal of Historical Linguistics, 1 (2): 175–246, doi:10.1075/jhl.1.2.03fra, hdl:1885/29283, S2CID 42217419.
• —— (2012), "The dynamics of linguistic diversity: Egalitarian multilingualism and power imbalance among northern Vanuatu languages" (PDF), International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2012 (214): 85–110, doi:10.1515/ijsl-2012-0022, S2CID 145208588
• —— (2015). "The ins and outs of up and down: Disentangling the nine geocentric space systems of Torres and Banks languages" (PDF). In Alexandre François; Sébastien Lacrampe; Michael Franjieh; Stefan Schnell (eds.). The languages of Vanuatu: Unity and diversity. Studies in the Languages of Island Melanesia. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics. pp. 137–195. hdl:1885/14819. ISBN 978-1-922185-23-5.
• —— (2016), "The historical morphology of personal pronouns in northern Vanuatu" (PDF), in Pozdniakov, Konstantin (ed.), Comparatisme et reconstruction : tendances actuelles, Faits de Langues, vol. 47, Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 25–60
• —— (2022). "Presentation of the Lakon language, and audio archive". Pangloss Collection. Paris: CNRS. Retrieved 18 March 2023.

• Portions of the Book of Common Prayer in Lakon from Project Canterbury
• A book of traditional stories, monolingual in Lakon language (site of linguist A. François)
• Detailed list and map of the Banks and Torres languages, showing range of Lakon.
• Audio recordings in the Lakon language, in open access, by A. François (source: Pangloss Collection).
• Paradisec has collections with Lakon language materials including Arthur Capell's fieldnotes (AC2) and Digitised microfilm images from Pacific Manuscripts Bureau (PAMBU).