Major General James G. Blunt

Tangoa, or Leon Tatagoa, is an Oceanic language spoken on Tangoa Island, south of Espiritu Santo Island in Vanuatu. The community was an early settlement for Christian missionaries, leading to its use as a lingua franca in the area, having largely displaced the moribund Araki language spoken on Araki Island.^[2]

Name

The name Tangoa is an endonym. In neighboring Araki, it is known as R̄ango.^[3]

Characteristics

Tangoa is one of the few in the world possessing a set of linguolabial consonants.

References

^ Tangoa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ Vari-Bogiri, Hannah (2008). "A Sociolinguistic Survey of Araki: A Dying Language of Vanuatu". Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. 26 (1). doi:10.1080/14790710508668398.
^ See entry R̄ango in the dictionary of Araki.

[e18-1] Tangoa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)

[2] Vari-Bogiri, Hannah (2008). "A Sociolinguistic Survey of Araki: A Dying Language of Vanuatu". Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. 26 (1). doi:10.1080/14790710508668398.

[3] See entry R̄ango in the dictionary of Araki.

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