[3] Robert Henry Codrington compiled the first dictionary of Mota (1896), and worked with George Sarawia and others to produce a large number of early publications in this language.
As a result, penultimate high vowels tend to be deleted, creating new consonant clusters (see below).
That phonotactic profile has been preserved in many words of modern Mota (e.g. salagoro [salaɣoro] “secret enclosure for initiation rituals”, ran̄oran̄o [raŋoraŋo] “Acalypha hispida”), unlike surrounding languages which massively created closed syllables.
[7] As a result, many modern Mota words now feature final consonants and/or consonant clusters: e.g. pal [pal] (< palu) "to steal"; snaga [snaɣa] (< sinaga) "vegetable food"; ptepte [ptepte] (< putepute) "to sit".
Ivens of the Anglican Melanesian Mission and published in 1931 by the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS).