Cèmuhî (Camuhi, Camuki, Tyamuhi, Wagap) is an
Oceanic
Oceanic may refer to:
*Of or relating to the ocean
*Of or relating to Oceania
**Oceanic climate
**Oceanic languages
**Oceanic person or people, also called "Pacific Islander(s)"
Places
* Oceanic, British Columbia, a settlement on Smith Island, ...
language spoken on the island of
New Caledonia
New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...
, in the area of
Poindimié,
Koné, and
Touho. The language has approximately 3,300 speakers and is considered a
regional language of France.
Cèmuhî was studied by the French linguist .
Phonology
Consonants
The consonants of Cèmuhî are shown in the table below.
Rivierre analyzes the contrasts of Cèmuhî along three
emic
In anthropology, folkloristics, linguistics, and the social and behavioral sciences, ''emic'' () and ''etic'' () refer to two kinds of field research done and viewpoints obtained.
The ''emic'' approach is an insider's perspective, which looks ...
categories: nasal, semi-nasal (i.e.
prenasalized
Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent (or occasionally a non-nasal sonorant) that behave phonologically like single consonants. The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rather than clus ...
), and oral consonants. He uses the established term "
labiovelar" (reproduced in the table) for what can be described more exactly as
labial-velarized (protruded)
bilabial consonant
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips.
Frequency
Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tli ...
s.
Vowels
The chart below shows Cèmuhî vowels, all of which can contrast in length. While all vowels are phonetically nasalized after a nasal consonant, only two
nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel /ɑ̃/ () or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are p ...
s are reported to be contrastive: /ɛ̃ ~ ã/ and /õ ~ ũ/.
Tone
Like its neighbour Paicî language, Paicî, Cèmuhî is one of the few
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken ...
which have developed
contrastive tone. However, unlike other New Caledonian tonal languages, Cèmuhî has three tonal registers: high, mid, and low tones.
See also
*
Northern New Caledonian languages
Notes
Bibliography
*
*
*
External links
Audio recordings in the Cèmuhî language in open access, by Jean-Claude Rivierre
(source: ''Pangloss Collection
The Pangloss Collection is a digital library whose objective is to store and facilitate access to audio recordings in endangered languages of the world. Developed by the LACITO centre of CNRS in Paris, the collection provides free online access ...
'').
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cemuhi Language
New Caledonian languages
Languages of New Caledonia
Tonal languages in non-tonal families