Changing winds: Notes on the vilyhoru of Erromango, Vanuatu

Abstract

In 2017, drawing on the extensive linguistic documentation that Terry Crowley undertook on two of Erromango island’s languages – Sye and Ura – as well as his own expansive knowledge of the maritime vocabulary of Vanuatu’s southern islands, esteemed linguist John Lynch (2017) asked, “Why did Erromangan winds turn 90 degrees?” Lynch concluded that, whilst demonstrating linguistic similarities with wind terminologies of the other southern islands of Vanuatu, Erromango’s wind directions were turned 90 degrees. In 2021, a community traditional marine knowledge and story-telling project led by the Erromango Cultural Association undertook a mapping of Erromangan wind directions which revealed an early misreading of terminology. This paper shares community insights into the expansion of common linguistic understanding of Erromangan wind directions, as revealed through the 2021 cultural heritage documentation project. Through a community-driven initiative, contemporary Erromangan seafarers and cultural elders ‘corrected’ and expanded linguistic terminology relating to winds, building on Terry Crowley’s valuable 2000 Sye dictionary and situating within John Lynch’s studies of the maritime vocabulary of Vanuatu’s southern islands. The initiative underscored the importance of community-driven approaches in the growth of linguistic research on indigenous languages in Vanuatu, and the value of long-standing partnerships with linguists in this process.