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Austronesian language spoken in New Caledonia
Ajië (also known as Houailou (Wailu), Wai, and A'jie) is an Oceanic language spoken in New Caledonia. It has approximately 4,000 speakers.
Phonology
Consonants
Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
nor. | lab. | nor. | lab. | ||||||
Stop | voiceless | p | pʷ | t | c | k | kʷ | (ʔ) | |
prenasal | ᵐb | ᵐbʷ | ⁿd | ᶮɟ | ᵑɡ | ᵑɡʷ | |||
Nasal | m | mʷ | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||
Fricative | v | vʷ | ɣ | ||||||
Rhotic | ɾ | r | |||||||
Approximant | l | j | w |
A glottal stop only appears after oral vowels. Different speakers may realize /v/ as a bilabial sound /β/. Glide sounds [ɹ, ɻ] are heard as allophones of /r/.[2][3]
Vowels
Front | Central | Back | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
High | i | ɯ | u | |
High-mid | e | ə | o | |
Low-mid | ɛ | ʌ | ɔ | |
Low | a |
Front | Central | Back | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
High | iʔ | ɯʔ | uʔ | |
High-mid | eʔ | əʔ | oʔ | |
Low-mid | ɛʔ | ʌʔ | ɔʔ | |
Low | aʔ |
In addition to this, vowel length is phonetically distinct in Ajië, bringing an additional sixteen vowels for a total of forty-eight total vowels. Only the plain oral and nasal vowels are displayed for simplicity.
Front | Central | Back | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
High | ĩ | ɯ̃ | ũ | |
High-mid | ẽ | ə̃ | õ | |
Low-mid | ɛ̃ | ʌ̃ | ɔ̃ | |
Low | ã |
References
- ^ Ajië at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Tryon, Darrell T.; Aramiou, Sylvain; Euritein, Jean (1995). A'jië. In Darrell T. Tryon (ed.), Comparative Austronesian dictionary: an introduction to Austronesian studies, part 1: fascicle 1: Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 859–865.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location (link) - ^ de La Fontinelle, Jacqueline (1976). La langue de Houailou, Nouvelle-Calédonie: description phonologique et description syntaxique. Peeters Publishers.
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