Iaai language
| Iaai | |
|---|---|
| Region | Ouvéa Island, New Caledonia |
|
Native speakers
|
4,100 (2009 census) |
|
Austronesian
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | iaai1238 |
Iaai (Iaai pronunciation: [jaːi]) is a language of Ouvéa Island (New Caledonia). It shares the island of Ouvéa with Fagauvea, a Polynesian outlier language.
Iaai is the sixth-most-spoken language of New Caledonia, with 4078 speakers as of 2009. It is taught in schools in an effort to preserve it.
The main sources of information about the language of Iaai are the various publications by the linguist Françoise Ozanne-Rivierre, from LACITO–CNRS.
Iaai is remarkable for its large inventory of unusual phonemes, in particular its consonants, with a rich variety of voiceless nasals and approximants. It may be the only language in the world to possess a voiceless retroflex nasal.
Iaai has ten vowel qualities, all of which may occur long and short. There is little difference in quality depending on length.
Iaai constitutes one of the few cases of front rounded vowels attested outside of their geographic stronghold in Eurasia, even if other cases have since been reported in the Oceanic family.
The vowel /ø øː/ is only known to occur in a half a dozen words. In all of these but /ɲ̊øːk/ "dedicate", it appears between a labial (b, m) and velar (k, ŋ) consonant.
After the non-labiovelarized labial consonants and the vowel /y yː/, the vowel /ɔ ɔː/ is pronounced [œ œː].
The open vowels only contrast in a few environments. /æ æː/ only occurs after the plain labial consonants and the vowel /y yː/, the same environment that produces [œ œː]. /a aː/ does not occur after /ɥ ɥ̊ y yː/, but does occur elsewhere, so that there is a contrast between /æ æː/ and /a aː/ after /b p m m̥ f/.
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Wikipedia