Dorig language

Not to be confused with Doric Greek or Doric dialect (Scotland).

Dorig
Native to	Vanuatu
Region	Gaua
Native speakers	300 (2012)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic Vanuatu Northern Vanuatu East Vanuatu Dorig
Language codes
ISO 639-3	wwo
Glottolog	weta1242

Dorig (sometimes called Wetamut) is an Oceanic language spoken on Gaua island in Vanuatu.

Its 300 speakers live mostly in the village of Dorig (IPA: [ⁿdʊˈriɰ]), on the south coast of Gaua. Smaller speaker communities can be found in the villages of Qteon (east coast) and Qtevut (west coast).

Dorig's immediate neighbours are Koro and Mwerlap.

Phonology

Dorig has 8 phonemic vowels. These include 7 short monophthongs /i ɪ ɛ a ɔ ʊ u/ and one long vowel /aː/.

Dorig vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Near-close	ɪ	ʊ
Open-mid	ɛ	ɔ
Open	a ∙ aː

The phonotactic template for a syllable in Dorig is: /CCVC/ — e.g. /rk͡pʷa/ ‘woman’;/ŋ͡mʷsar/ ‘poor’; /wrɪt/ ‘octopus’. Remarkably, the consonant clusters of these /CCVC/ syllables are not constrained by the Sonority Sequencing Principle.

External links

• Linguistic map of north Vanuatu, showing range of Dorig on Gaua.
• A story in Dorig, with audio recording and translation.