The Santa Cruz language, locally known as Natqgu (new orthography) or Natügu (old orthography), is the main language spoken on the island of

Nendö Nendö is the largest of the Santa Cruz Islands, located in the Temotu Province, Temotu province of Solomon Islands. The island is also known as Santa Cruz, Nendo, Ndeni, Nitendi or Ndende. The name ''Santa Cruz'' was given to the island in ...

or 'Santa Cruz', in the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...

Name

The name ''Natügu'' means "our language" (''natü'' "language, word" + ''-gu'' "1st + 2nd person plural suffix").

Genetic affiliation

Until the beginning of the 21st century, it was widely believed that Santa Cruz is a

Papuan language The Papuan languages are the non-Austronesian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands in Indonesia, Solomon Islands, and East Timor. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply a ...

. Like the rest of the Reefs – Santa Cruz languages, however, it was shown to be a member of the

Austronesian Austronesian may refer to: *The Austronesian languages *The historical Austronesian peoples The Austronesian people, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples who have settled in Taiwan, maritime Sout ...

language family in the 2000s.

Dialects

Dialects are Bënwë (Banua), Londai, Malo, Nea, Nooli. Speakers of most dialects understand Lwowa and Mbanua well. The Nea and Nooli dialects are the most divergent, actually a separate language (Nalögo).

Phonology

Consonants

Voiced stops can also be heard as prenasalized.

Vowels

Orthography

The Santa Cruz language has two orthographies. The old orthography uses diacritics to mark vowel quality and nasalization while the new orthography uses no diacritics. The new orthography was developed in 1994, motivated by concerns about the difficulty of reading and typesetting the old orthography. In the old orthography, nasal vowels are represented with a tilde over the vowel letter. In the new orthography, nasal vowels are represented with a straight apostrophe after the vowel letter. * The letter ''h'' is used only in English loanwords. * The letter ''j'' is used natively in one dialect, and otherwise only used in English loanwords. * The letter ''â'' was written ''o̲'' in earlier versions of the old orthography. * The letter ''r'' is also used as a consonant in English loanwords.

References

External links

Buk Ngr Nzangiongr
Anglican Book of Worship in the Natqgu Language * Paradisec ha
a number of collections with Natügu materials
{{Authority control Languages of the Solomon Islands Temotu languages