Melsisi is a large settlement and Catholic mission on the west coast of Pentecost Island , Vanuatu .
29-672: The mission includes a large church, convent, clinic, Francophone primary and secondary schools, and a small guesthouse. Melsisi also has a bank and post office, numerous small stores, restaurants, a sports field, and a shed by the beach where cargo ships come ashore. Although Melsisi has virtually no permanent population, many residents from surrounding communities have houses there, which they stay in when visiting Melsisi for church, school, work, medical treatment or transport. Each of these communities has its own nakamal in Melsisi, and many of these nakamals have commercial kava bars alongside. In
58-404: A concrete memorial. Melsisi was chosen as the site of a permanent mission due to the presence of a reliable fresh water supply. The original mission buildings were located on the field by the river mouth, although the mission was later moved uphill after suffering floods and tsunamis. The ruins of one of the original mission buildings still stand at the corner of the sports field, and it is said that
87-399: A few local people whose fathers or mothers were Sowa speakers still remember parts of the language, although none speak it fluently. A couple, including Isaiah Tabi Vahka of Waterfall Village and Adam Bulesisbwat of Lesuubelakan, compiled short written notes on Sowa in an attempt to ensure that the language was not lost. The only linguist to have studied Sowa while the language was still alive
116-432: A fully authentic restoration of the language. Given the close relationship between Sowa and Ske language (the two are reckoned by locals to have been mutually intelligible), a case could be made for classifying the two as dialects rather than as separate languages. In his 1976 survey of New Hebrides Languages , Darrell Tryon classified Sowa as a separate language, calculating its cognacy with Ske at 77% (with 80% being
145-412: A kink in the coastline the main part of the village faces almost due south. The island's main north–south road passes through Melsisi, climbing steeply up from the coast through the village and passing over the hill to the north-east. On the hilltop above Melsisi, near the village of Ilamre, is a prominent concrete cross. Unlike most of Pentecost's roads, the road through Melsisi is surfaced with concrete,
174-535: A long vowel. Clusters of consonants within syllables were not permitted. Unlike in neighbouring Ske , there was no prenasalization of consonants in Sowa. In addition to the five standard vowels ( a , e , i , o and u ), Sowa appears to have had mid-high vowels é (intermediate between e and i ) and ó (intermediate between o and u ), like in Ske and Sa languages. Long vowels ( aa , ee , etc.) occurred as
203-416: A man who wanted the water for his own land. On the southern branch there are cascades. The river floods dangerously after heavy rain, although a concrete footbridge 5 minutes' walk upstream from the main river crossing allows it to be crossed in these conditions. Melsisi was founded by Marist missionaries, who originally came ashore in 1898 at Vanrabibi, 3 km to the south-east, at a spot marked today by
232-511: A measure necessary to prevent erosion since this section of road is extremely steep. The surfacing of the road has been carried out in stages, with the last section (from the junction below the clinic to the junction behind the church) completed in 2010. Below the village is a river, which flows out of a deep gorge, and divides inland into two main branches. The northern branch of the river is usually dry, although local legend tells that it used to flow, before being diverted using traditional magic by
261-412: A nakamal there is often a flattened clearing, or nasara , used for dances and outdoor gatherings. In southern Vanuatu, a nakamal may be a large, sheltered outdoor space, such as under a banyan tree. In Vanuatu's capital Port Vila , the assembly building of the national council of chiefs ( Malvatumauri ) is designed in the form of a traditional nakamal. The nakamal ’s most prominent function nowadays
290-481: A noun by the addition of a nominalising suffix -an : Modifiers generally came after a noun: Verbs were preceded by markers providing information on the subject and the tense , aspect and mood of an action. Some of these are difficult to reconstruct, due to inconsistencies within and between sources, but a plausible set is: Dual (two-person) forms incorporating a particle ra also existed, as in Ske , but are not well remembered. Negative phrases began with
319-506: A raid on Vanmwel village in which a chief was killed. Upon hearing of this, the British colonial authorities took several of the perpetrators away to prison in Vila, and had the priest, Père Guillaume, tried in a Nouméa court for inciting the natives to murder. He was acquitted on the grounds that there was no legal code in force on the northern islands of Vanuatu at that time under which killing
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#1732791662439348-592: A result of the dropping of r at the ends of words, and are shown to have been distinct from short vowels by minimal pairs such as me "to be red" and mee (< mer ) "to be black". Because no linguist ever worked directly with a native Sowa speaker, the language's grammar is poorly known. However, some of the basics can be deduced from the phrases that are remembered. Personal pronouns were distinguished by person and number . They were not distinguished by gender . The basic pronouns in Sowa were: Nouns in Sowa were generally not preceded by articles . Plurality
377-461: A result of un-phonetic spelling and interference from other languages. By comparison with related languages such as Apma and Raga , there appear to have been relatively few restrictions on the distribution of consonants. However, it appears that consonants occurring at the end of an utterance were modified according to Apma-like rules, with b , v and possibly w converted to p , d devoiced to t , g devoiced to k , and r dropped to produce
406-402: Is as a place for the preparation and drinking of kava . In urban Vanuatu, and in neighbouring New Caledonia , the term nakamal may be used for a kava bar where the drink is sold, although in rural Vanuatu a traditional nakamal (where kava preparation is a communal activity and money does not usually change hands) is distinct from a kava bar. An urban nakamal or kava bar at which kava
435-501: Is available for sale is advertised by a coloured light displayed at the entrance. Sowa language Sowa was the original language of south-central Pentecost island in Vanuatu . In the 20th century it was totally displaced by Apma , a neighbouring language. Sowa was closely related to Ske , another south Pentecost language. Sowa was originally spoken on both western and eastern sides of Pentecost. The river at Melsisi formed
464-516: Is used for gatherings, ceremonies and the drinking of kava . A nakamal is found in every significant Vanuatu community, but the design of the nakamal and the traditions surrounding it vary between areas. The term nakamal is a Bislama word, borrowed from certain Oceanic languages spoken in Vanuatu, such as North Efate . In those languages, such a form can be parsed as na kamal(i) , combining
493-425: The approximate threshold below which two forms are considered separate languages rather than mere dialects). However, in their 2001 survey, Lynch & Crowley did not recognise Sowa as a language, noting that Tryon's data suffered from significant margins of error. Using an updated word list, Andrew Gray calculated the cognacy of Sowa and Ske at 82%. Sowa's status as a language is therefore borderline if considered on
522-549: The basis of cognacy figures alone. However, local people perceive Sowa very much as a distinct language and not as a Ske dialect, and there are significant grammatical and phonological differences between Sowa and Ske. The consonants of Sowa were b , d , g , k , l , m , n , ng (as in English "singer"), p , r , s , t , bilabial v , w , z , and labiovelar bw , mw and pw . Sowa appears to have lacked h , although this letter occasionally appears in records of Sowa as
551-399: The common article na and a noun kamal or kamali . Ultimately, it descends from a Proto-Oceanic and Proto-Malayo-Polynesian etymon *kamaliR , meaning "men's house". Cognates in non-Oceanic languages include Cebuano and Tagalog kamalig “granary”. In north and central Vanuatu, the nakamal generally takes the form of a large building, assembled from traditional materials with
580-442: The help of the entire community, under the direction of a particular chief. Entry to the nakamal is often restricted to men, and the building may be used as a sleeping and living area for unmarried men and boys and for male visitors to the village. Significantly, most nakamals lack a lockable door, indicating that all friendly visitors are welcome, although there may be a low barrier across the entrance to keep out animals. In front of
609-505: The language's north-western boundary, and its range extended southwards to a creek near the village of Levizendam. Following the depopulation of Pentecost that occurred after the introduction of European diseases, men from Sowa-speaking areas were married women from other parts of Pentecost, who were mostly Apma speakers. As a result, by the 1960s, Apma had totally replaced Sowa as the predominant local language. The last native Sowa speaker, Maurice Tabi of Vanvat village, died in 2000. Today,
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#1732791662439638-409: The local Apma language , the village's name is really Melsiisii , with a long and stressed final vowel. Apma siisii means to scrabble at or disturb, and locals claim that the site got this name because inhabitants from upland villages were historically harassed when they came down to the sea. Most of Melsisi is built on a steep, grassy mountainside. Although located on Pentecost's west coast, due to
667-409: The main source of written information on Apma language. The use of Apma by the Melsisi mission is blamed by some for the decline and subsequent extinction of Sowa language , originally spoken south of the river. 15°44′17″S 168°08′06″E / 15.738°S 168.135°E / -15.738; 168.135 Nakamal A nakamal is a traditional meeting place in Vanuatu . It
696-454: The outlines of other buildings can be seen when looking down on the field under appropriate lighting conditions. In the large and densely populated but historically inaccessible region inland from Melsisi, native religion survived for quite a long time after the establishment of the mission. Between 1932 and 1941 the Melsisi mission found itself drawn into a spiral of conflicts between Christianised and un-Christianised villagers, culminating with
725-508: The south-western boundary of Apma language , although today Apma is spoken on both sides of the river. A dialect named Asuk or Asa was originally spoken along the coast north of Melsisi but is now extinct. Many of the overseas missionaries who came to work at Melsisi acquired fluency in Apma, and until the work of Cindy Schneider and Andrew Gray in the late 2000s, the linguistic notes and religious translations made by these missionaries constituted
754-458: Was David Walsh, who collected a vocabulary list in 1969. Andrew Gray, a British schoolteacher at Ranwadi College , worked with speakers' children in the late 2000s to try to reconstruct the basics of the language. Some people in the former Sowa area see the language as a part of their cultural heritage and lament its loss. There is talk of reviving Sowa, although this is not a high priority for most local people, and records are insufficient to allow
783-410: Was a crime. The 'Melsisi Wars' were one of the factors that led to such a code eventually being imposed in 1943. The church house, one of the largest buildings on Pentecost, was originally built in the late 1950s. Around this time the last un-Christianised members of the community converted to Christianity. The church house was badly damaged in the earthquake of 1999, but subsequently repaired. Melsisi
812-438: Was catastrophically damaged by Cyclone Harold on 6 April 2020. This storm struck south-central Pentecost near its peak intensity, flattening almost every structure in Melsisi except for a few concrete buildings. Several people were injured by debris and there was one fatality. The church house, hospital, bank and school were all severely damaged. Recovery from the disaster is still underway. The river at Melsisi originally formed
841-513: Was indicated by placing the pronoun néé ("them") or a number after the noun. Nouns could be either free , or directly-possessed . Directly-possessed nouns were suffixed to indicate whom an item belonged to. For example: Possession could also be indicated by the use of possessive classifiers , separate words that occur before or after the noun and take possessive suffixes. These classifiers were similar to those of Apma : The possessive suffixes were as follows: A verb could be transformed into
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