South Vanuatu languages

The nine South Vanuatu languages form a family of the Southern Oceanic languages, spoken in Tafea Province (Tanna, Aneityum, Futuna, Erromango, and Aniwa) of Vanuatu.

Languages

 * Erromango family
 * Southern: Sie, Sorung†
 * Northern: Ifo (Utaha)†, Ura (See Erromanga language for a description)
 * Tanna family
 * Southern: Kwamera (South Tanna), Southwest Tanna
 * Northern: Lenakel (West Tanna), Whitesands (Weasisi, East Tanna), North Tanna
 * Aneityum
 * Aneityum (Anejom̃)

François (2015)
François (2015:18–21) lists the following names and locations for the 9 South Vanuatu languages.

Proto-South Vanuatu
Proto-South Vanuatu was reconstructed by John Lynch in 2001.

The language, compared to Proto-Oceanic, went through a series of vowel reductions, leading to the creation of a new vowel written as *ə, such as in *na-waiR "fresh water" resulting in Proto-South Vanuatu *nə-wai of the same meaning.

However, it also preserves some, but not all final consonants. For example, *tanum "to plant, bury" is reflected in Proto-South Vanuatu as *(a)-tenum "to bury", but *taŋis "to cry" is instead reflected as *(a)-taŋi.

Vowels
The vowels of Proto-South Vanuatu, according to Lynch, are:

Consonants
The consonants of Proto-South Vanuatu, according to Lynch, are:
 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

! colspan="2" | !Labiovelar !Bilabial !Alveolar !Palatal !Velar !Uvular ! rowspan="2" |Stop ! voiced ! voiceless ! colspan="2" |Nasal ! colspan="2" |Fricative ! colspan="2" |Approximant
 * +Consonants
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }