Ndrumbea, variously spelled Dumbea, Ndumbea, Dubea, Drubea and Païta, is a New Caledonian language that gave its name to the capital of New Caledonia,

Nouméa Nouméa () is the capital and largest city of the French Sui generis collectivity, special collectivity of New Caledonia and is also the largest Francophone city in Oceania. It is situated on a peninsula in the south of New Caledonia's main i ...

, and the neighboring town of Dumbéa; it is also spoken in the nearby region of

Païta Païta () is a commune in France, commune in the suburbs of Nouméa in the South Province, New Caledonia, South Province of New Caledonia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. New Caledonia's international airport, La Tontouta In ...

. It however has been displaced to villages outside the capital, with fewer than a thousand speakers remaining. Gordon (1995) estimates that there may only be two or three hundred. The Dubea are the people; the language has been called Naa Dubea (or more precisely Ṇã́ã Ṇḍùmbea) "language of Dubea". Ndrumbea 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 ...

that is tonal, and it has a series of consonants that are also unusual for the region.

Phonology

Ndrumbea, like its close relative Numee, is a tonal language, with three contrasting tones, high, mid, and low.

Vowels

Ndrumbea has seven oral vowels, long and short. The mid front vowels are lower when short than long: . There are five

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, also long and short: . These interact with nasal consonants, described below. Back vowels do not occur after labialized consonants, , or . In addition to the complementary correlation of nasal vowels with nasal consonants, nasal vowels do not occur after . –oral vowel derives historically from –nasal vowel. Phonetically, a stop–flap consonant cluster will be separated by an obscure

epenthetic vowel In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the first syllable ('' prothesis''), the last syllable (''paragoge''), or between two syllabic sounds in a word. The opposite process in which ...

with the quality of the following phonemic vowel.

Consonants

Nasal vowels once contrasted after

nasal stop In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast major ...

s, as they still do in Numee. However, in Ndrumbea, nasal stops partially denasalized before oral vowels, so that now prenasalized stops precede oral vowels, and nasal stops precede nasal vowels. Similarly, only occurs before oral vowels. The fricatives are sometimes realized as approximants . However, the approximants are never fricated. The nasal stop sometimes has incomplete closure, producing a nasalized approximant . The is most often a tap , sometimes an approximant , and occasionally an alveolar tap or trill, or . It does not occur word initially, and does not contrast with word medially. It tends to be nasalized before a nasal vowel, with the nasality spreading to preceding vowels: "to run" has been recorded as . Ndrumbea contrasts three coronal places, articulated with the tip or blade of the tongue contacting the roof of the mouth: , , and their nasal homologs. is apical, in contrast to

laminal A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue, in contact with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, ...

. It is not clear if is apico-dental or denti-alveolar, but it has a sharp release burst. , on the other hand, has a noisy release and approaches an affricate, . It may actually be closer to an alveolar than post-alveolar, and appears to be enunciated more forcefully than . also has a fricated release, and for many speakers this is longer than that of . All consonants labeled as Dental or Postalveolar (with the exception of ) are

coronal consonant Coronals are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Among places of articulation, only the coronal consonants can be divided into as many articulation types: apical (using the tip of the tongue), laminal (using the ...

References

Ndrumbea language alphabet and pronunciation
at ''Omniglot'' * * *Shintani T. L. A. & Païta Y. (1990a) ''Grammaire de la langue de Païta''. Nouméa: Sociéte d'Etudes Historiques de Nouvelle-Calédonie. *Shintani T. L. A. & Païta Y. (1990b) ''Dictionnaire de la langue de Païta''. Nouméa: Sociéte d'Etudes Historiques de Nouvelle-Calédonie. {{Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages New Caledonian languages Languages of New Caledonia Tonal languages in non-tonal families Vulnerable languages