Drehu language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Drehu
Spoken in:	Lifou, New Caledonia
Total speakers:	11,338 (1996 census)
Language family:	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Central-Eastern Eastern Oceanic Central-Eastern Remote Loyalty Islands Drehu
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	`map`
ISO/FDIS 639-3:	`dhv`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

Drehu (also known as Dehu, De'u, Lifou, Lifu, qene drehu) is an Austronesian language mostly spoken on Lifou Island, Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia. It has about twelve-thousand fluent speakers and the status of a French regional language. This status means that pupils can take it as an optional topic for the baccalauréat in New Caledonia itself or French mainland¹. It has been also taught at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) in Paris since 1973 and at the University of New Caledonia since 2000.

There is also another language on the island called qene miny. In time past, this was used to speak to the chiefs (joxu). Today very few people still know and practice this language.

1 Phonology
- 1.1 Vowels
- 1.2 Consonants
2 Writing system
3 Grammar
- 3.1 Personal pronouns
4 Notes
5 Bibliography
6 External links

[edit] Phonology

[edit] Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i iː		u uː
Mid	e eː	ø øː	o oː
Open	æ æː		ɑ ɑː

[edit] Consonants

		Biabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Alveopalatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	Voiceless	p			t	ʈ		k
Stop	Voiced	(b)			d	ɖ		ɡ
Nasal	Voiceless	m̥			n̥		ɲ̊	ŋ̊
Nasal	Voiced	m			n		ɲ	ŋ
Affricate	Voiceless						tʃ
Affricate	Voiced						(dʒ)
Fricative	Voiceless		f	θ	s			x	h
Fricative	Voiced		(v)	ð	z
Lateral	Voiceless				l̥
Lateral	Voiced				l
Semivowel	Voiceless	ʍ
Semivowel	Voiced	w

/b dʒ v/ occur only in loanwords.

[edit] Writing system

Drehu was first written in the Latin alphabet by the Polynesian² and English missionaries of the London Missionary Society during the 1840s, with the help of the natives. The first complete Bible was published in 1890.

This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

[edit] Grammar

[edit] Personal pronouns

Singular

Eni/ni : I, me
Eö/ö : you
Nyipë/nyipëti : you (a polite form of address to a chief (joxu)or an older man)
Nyipo/nyipot(i) : you (a polite form of address to an older woman)
Angeic(e) : he, him, she
Nyidrë/nyidrët(i) : he, him (a polite form of address to a chief (joxu)or an older man)
Nyidro/nyidrot(i) : you (a polite form of address to an older woman)
Ej(e) : it

Dual

Eaho/ho : we two (exclusive)
Easho/sho (easo/so) : we two (inclusive)
Epon(i)/pon(i) : you two
Eahlo : they two
Lue ej(e) : they two for things and animals

Plural

Eahun(i)/hun(i) : we, us (exclusive)
Eashë/shë, easë/së : we all, all of us (inclusive)
Epun(i)/pun(i) : you
Angaatr(e) : they, them
Itre ej(e) : they , them (for things and animals)

[edit] Notes

Only five of the twenty-eight Kanak languages have this status: Drehu (island of Lifou), Nengone (island of Maré), A'jië (around Houaïlou), Paicĩ (around Poindimié) and Xaracuu (around Canala and Thio).
Most were from the Cook Islands.
The first writing system didn't distinguish between the dental (written "d", "t") and the alveolar/retroflex("dr" and "tr") consonants, which for a long time were written indifferently "d" and "t". In drehu θ and ð are not dental but interdental consonants. The new writing system was created during the 1970s.

[edit] Bibliography

(French) (1882) Notes Grammaticales sur la langue de Lifu (Loyaltys).
(English) Ray, Sidney H. (Jul.–Dec. 1917). "The People and Language of Lifu, Loyalty Islands". The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Society of Great Britain and Ireland 47: 239–322.
(English) Walsh, D. T. (1967). Dehu Grammar. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
(French) Le dréhu, langue de Lifou (Iles Loyauté): phonologie, morphologie, syntaxe. ISBN 2-85297-142-9