The nine South Vanuatu languages form a family of the Southern Oceanic languages,[1] spoken in Tafea Province (Tanna, Aneityum, Futuna, Erromango, and Aniwa) of Vanuatu.
François (2015:18–21) lists the following names and locations for the 9 South Vanuatu languages.
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.
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.