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Iaai (Iaai pronunciation: ; ) is a language of
Ouvéa Island Ouvéa Island or Uvea Island is one of the Loyalty Islands, in the archipelago of New Caledonia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. The island is part of the communes of France, commune (municipality) of Ouvéa, in the Loyalty ...
(
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 ...
). It shares the island of Ouvéa with Fagauvea, a
Polynesian outlier Polynesian outliers are a number of culturally Polynesian societies that geographically lie outside the main region of Polynesian influence, known as the Polynesian Triangle; instead, Polynesian outliers are scattered in the two other Pacific su ...
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 language has been studied by linguists Françoise Ozanne-Rivierre and Anne-Laure Dotte.


Phonology

Iaai is remarkable for its large inventory of unusual phonemes, in particular its consonants, with a rich variety of voiceless nasals and approximants.


Vowels

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 vowel A front rounded vowel is a particular type of vowel that is both front and rounded. The front rounded vowels defined by the IPA include: * , a close front-rounded vowel (or "high front rounded vowel") * , a near-close front rounded vowel (or ...
s attested outside of their geographic stronghold in
Eurasia Eurasia ( , ) is a continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, Physical geography, physiographically, Eurasia is a single supercontinent. The concept of Europe and Asia as distinct continents d ...
, even if other cases have since been reported in the Oceanic family.See for example Löyöp, Lemerig, Vurës of northern
Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (; ), is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east o ...
, p.194 of: .
The vowel is only known to occur in six words. In all of these but "dedicate", it appears between a labial (b, m) and velar (k, ŋ) consonant. After the non-labiovelarized labial consonants and the vowel , the vowel is pronounced . The open vowels only contrast in a few environments. only occurs after the plain labial consonants and the vowel , the same environment that produces . does not occur after , but does occur elsewhere, so that there is a contrast between and after . The vowels are written with their IPA letters. is written ''û,'' is written ''ë,'' is written ''â,'' and is written ''ö.'' Long vowels, which are twice as long as short vowels, are written double.


Consonants

Iaai has an unusual voicing distinction in its sonorants, as well as several coronal series. Unlike most languages of New Caledonia, voiced stops are not
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 ...
.See Maddieson & Anderson (1994). Unlike many languages with denti-alveolar stops, Iaai are released abruptly, and has a very short
voice onset time In phonetics, voice onset time (VOT) is a feature of the production of stop consonants. It is defined as the length of time that passes between the release of a stop consonant and the onset of voicing, the vibration of the vocal folds, or, accor ...
. However, the apical post-alveolar and laminal palatal stops have substantially fricated releases , and may be better described as sounds between proper stops and affricates. The labial approximants are placed in their respective columns following their phonological behaviour (their effects on following vowels), but there is evidence that all members of these series are either
labial-palatal A labio-palatalized sound is one that is simultaneously labialized and palatalized. Typically the roundedness is compressed, like , rather than protruded like . The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for this secondary articulation is ...
or labial-velar. are sometimes pronounced as weak fricatives . In many cases, words with voiced and voiceless approximants are morphologically related, such as "night" and "black". - and vowel-initial words have a similar relationship. The voiceless sonorant often marks object incorporation. However, many roots with voiceless sonorants have no voiced cognate. The labialized labials are more precisely labio-velarized labials. There is evidence that non-labialized labial consonants such as are palatalized , , ''etc.'', but this is obscured before front vowels. If this turns out to be the situation, it would parallel
Micronesian languages The Micronesian languages form a family of Oceanic languages. The twenty languages are known for their lack of plain labial consonant and have instead two series, palatalized and labio-velarized labials, similar to the related Kanak languages ...
which have no plain labials.


Notes


References

* Dotte, Anne-Laure (2013)
''Le iaai aujourd'hui. Évolutions sociolinguistiques et linguistiques d'une langue kanak de Nouvelle-Calédonie (Ouvéa, Îles Loyauté)''
Doctoral thesis. Université Lumière-Lyon2, Lyon, France. 528 pp. * * * . * . * . * . * . *Tryon, Darrell T. ''Iai grammar''. B-8, xii + 137 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1968.


External links

*
Five stories in Iaai
collected by F. Ozanne-Rivierre, and presented in bilingual format (
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 ...
of
LACITO LACITO (''Langues et Civilisations à Tradition Orale'') is a multidisciplinary research organisation, principally devoted to the study of cultures and languages of oral tradition. LACITO is a branch of the Centre National de la Recherche Scient ...
-
CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...
).
Presentation of Iaai
including an extensive bibliography.
Database of audio recordings in Iaai - basic Catholic prayers

Iaai Grammar
at the Internet Archive {{Authority control Loyalty Islands languages Languages of New Caledonia