| Gela | |
|---|---|
| Nggela | |
| Native to | Central Solomon Islands |
| Region | Big Nggela, Small Nggela, Sandfly and Buenavista Islands |
Native speakers | (12,000 cited 1999)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | nlg |
| Glottolog | gela1263 |
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Gela (Eng. pron. /ɡeɪlɑː/ GAY-lah), also known as Nggela [ᵑgela][2] and formerly as Florida,[3] is an Oceanic language spoken in the Nggela Islands, in the middle of the Solomon Islands. It belongs to the Southeast Solomonic group of the Oceanic family.
Towards the end of the 19th century, Gela was used by the Melanesian Mission of the Anglican Church of Melanesia, as a language of Christianisation[4] ‒ along with Mota, a language of the Banks islands of northern Vanuatu. The first translation of the scriptures in Gela was published in 1882.[3]
The three dialects of Gela are very similar, differing mainly on a small number of phonological points.
Gela has the following consonant phonemes:
| Labial | Alveolar | Velar | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||
| Stop | p | b | t | d | k | g |
| Fricative | v | s | z | ɣ | ||
| Approximant | w | l | j | |||
| Trill | r | |||||
The fricative /z/ is realized as [ð] in alternation with a retroflex sibilant [ʐ], initially before /a/.[5]
The Gela dominant voiced is "h" not "z". "Z" is found in Savosavo language speakers (and Bugotu and part of Guadalcanal) who also speak Gela - primarily due to their use of the Church of Melanesia Common Prayer Books and Hymns (written in Gela in the 1940s).
Gela uses /i, e, a, o, u/ with no contrastive vowel length.
Stress generally occurs on each word's penultimate syllable.
In general, for two-digit numbers, numbers are expressed as a*10+b, where a and b are numbers ranging from 1 to 9.
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