Iaai language
| Iaai | |
|---|---|
| Hwen iaai | |
| Region | Ouvéa Island, New Caledonia |
Native speakers | 4,100 (2009 census)[1] |
Austronesian
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | iai |
| Glottolog | iaai1238 |
 Iaai is not endangered according to the classification system of the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
Iaai (Iaai pronunciation:
Iaai is the sixth-most-spoken language of New Caledonia, with 4078 speakers as of 2009.[2] 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.[3]
Vowels
Iaai has ten vowel qualities, all of which may occur long and short. There is little difference in quality depending on length.[4]
| Front | Central | Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unrounded
|
Rounded
|
Unrounded
|
Rounded
| ||
| Close | i iː | y yː | u uː | ||
| Close mid | e eː | ø øː | ɤ ɤː | o oː | |
| Open mid | [œ] [œː] | ɔ ɔː | |||
| Open | æ æː | a aː | |||
Iaai constitutes one of the few cases of front rounded vowels attested outside of their geographic stronghold in Eurasia,[5] even if other cases have since been reported in the Oceanic family.[6]
The vowel /ø øː/ is only known to occur in six 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/.
The vowels /i e ø a o u/ are written with their IPA letters. /y/ is written û, /æ/ is written ë, /ɔ/ is written â, and /ɤ/ 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
| Labial | Denti-
alveolar |
Alveolar | Retroflex | Pre-palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain / palatalized | labiovelarized
| ||||||||
Plosive
|
voiceless | p (pʲ) | t̪
|
ʈ (ʈ͡ʂ) | c (c͡ç) | k | |||
| voiced | (b) (bʲ) | bʷ (bˠʷ) | d̪
|
ɖ (ɖ͡ʐ) | ɟ (ɟ͡ʝ) | ɡ | |||
| Nasal | voiceless | m̥ʲ )
|
m̥ˠʷ )
|
n̪̊ | ɳ̊ | ɲ̊ | ŋ̊ | ||
| voiced | m (mʲ) | mʷ (mˠʷ) | n̪
|
ɳ | ɲ | ŋ | |||
Fricative
|
voiceless | f | θ | s | ʃ | x | |||
| voiced | ð | ||||||||
Approximant
|
voiceless | ɥ̊ (ɸʲ) | ʍ | l̥
|
h | ||||
| voiced | ɥ (βʲ) | w | l
|
||||||
Flap
|
ɽ | ||||||||
Unlike many languages with
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
In many cases, words with voiced and voiceless approximants are morphologically related, such as /liʈ/ "night" and /l̥iʈ/ "black". /h/- and vowel-initial words have a similar relationship. The voiceless sonorant often marks
The labialized labials are more precisely labio-velarized labials. There is evidence that non-labialized labial consonants such as /m/ are palatalized /pʲ/, /mʲ/, etc., but this is obscured before front vowels. If this turns out to be the situation, it would parallel Micronesian languages which have no plain labials.
Notes
- ^ Iaai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Dotte 2013.
- ^ The main sources about the phonology of Iaai are Ozanne-Rivierre (1976); Maddieson and Anderson (1994).
- ^ a b See Maddieson & Anderson (1994).
- ISBN 0-19-925591-1. (online version).
- S2CID 42217419.
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.
- Dotte, Anne-Laure (2017). "Dynamism and change in the possessive classifier system of Iaai". Oceanic Linguistics. 56 (2): 339–363. S2CID 148949180. Retrieved 2023-07-20.
- Maddieson, Ian; Anderson, Victoria (1994), "Phonetic Structures of Iaai" (PDF), UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics, 87: Fieldwork Studies of Targeted Languages II: 163–182
- Miroux, Daniel (2011), Parlons Iaai, Ouvéa, Nouvelle-Calédonie (in French), Paris: L'Harmattan.
- Ozanne-Rivierre, Françoise (1976), Le Iaai : langue mélanésienne d'Ouvéa (Nouvelle-Calédonie). Phonologie, morphologie, esquisse syntaxique (in French), Paris: Société d'études linguistiques et anthropologiques de France.
- Ozanne-Rivierre, Françoise (1984), Dictionnaire iaai (in French), Paris: Société d'études linguistiques et anthropologiques de France.
- Ozanne-Rivierre, Françoise (2003), "L'aire coutumière iaai", in Cerquiligni, Bernard (ed.), Les Langues de France (in French), Paris: PUF.
- Ozanne-Rivierre, Françoise (2004), "Spatial deixis in Iaai (Loyalty Islands)", in Senft, Gunter (ed.), Spatial deixis in Oceanic languages, Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
- Tryon, Darrell T. Iai grammar. B-8, xii + 137 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1968. doi:10.15144/PL-B8
External links
- (in French) Five stories in Iaai, collected by F. Ozanne-Rivierre, and presented in bilingual format (CNRS).
- Presentation of Iaai, including an extensive bibliography.
- Database of audio recordings in Iaai - basic Catholic prayers
- Iaai Grammar at the Internet Archive
| Authority control databases: National |
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