Lemerig language
language
Lemerig is an Oceanic language spoken on Vanua Lava, in Vanuatu.
The language is no longer actively spoken, having receded in favour of its neighbors, including Vera'a and possibly also Mwotlap or Vurës. Two remaining speakers live on the northern coast of the island.
Name
The name Lemerig refers to a now abandoned village in northern Vanua Lava; it is spelled Lēmērig [lɪmɪˈriɣ] in the language of the same name. It reflects an earlier Proto-Torres-Banks form *lemeriɣi, where the *riɣi component likely means "small".
Dialects
Lemerig has sometimes been referred to using the names of its local varieties: Päk, Sasar, and Alo-Teqel.
Judging from wordlists published by missionary and linguist Robert Codrington, these three varieties were very close to each other. The little differences there were went extinct during the 20th century.
Phonology
Lemerig has 11 phonemic vowels. These are all short monophthongs /i ɪ ɛ æ a œ ø ɒ̝ ɔ ʊ u/.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2028448. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lemerig language” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.