| Iaai | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spoken in | Ouvéa Island, New Caledonia | |||
| Native speakers | 1,560 (1996 census) | |||
| Language family |
Austronesian
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| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | iai | |||
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The Iaai language (pronounced [jaːi]) is a language of Ouvéa Island, New Caledonia. Although it had only 1,500 speakers as of 1996, it is becoming taught in schools in New Caledonia in an effort to preserve it.
Iaai is remarkable for its large inventory of unusual phonemes, which include one of the few certain cases of front rounded vowels outside of their geographic stronghold in Eurasia north of the Himalayas.[1] It also has an unusually rich variety of voiceless nasals and approximants; it may be the only language in the world to possess a voiceless retroflex nasal.
Given its presence near the only Polynesian languages spoken in New Caledonia - Polynesian languages being known for small phoneme inventories - Iaai's large phoneme inventory seems very surprising and the explanation for the unusual phonemes of many Kanak languages still is not known.
Iaai has ten vowel qualities, all of which may occur long and short. There is little difference in quality depending on length.[2]
| Front unrounded |
Front rounded |
Central | Back unrounded |
Back 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 |
The vowel /ø øː/ is only known to occur in a half dozen words. In all of these but /ɲ̊øːk/ "dedicate", it appears between a labial (b, m) and velar (k, ŋ) consonant.
After the plain (palatalized?) 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.
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.[2]
| (Palatalized) labial |
Labialized labial |
Denti- alveolar |
Alveolar | Retroflex | Pre-palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | Voiceless | p | t̪ | ʈ | c | k | |||
| Voiced | (b) | bʷ | d̪ | ɖ | ɟ | ɡ | |||
| Nasal | Voiceless | m̥ | m̥ʷ | n̪̥ | ɳ̊ | ɲ̊ | ŋ̊ | ||
| Voiced | m | mʷ | n̪ | ɳ | ɲ | ŋ | |||
| Fricative | Voiceless | f | θ | s | ʃ | x | |||
| Voiced | ð | ||||||||
| Approximant | Voiceless | ɥ̊ | w̥ | l̥ | h | ||||
| Voiced | ɥ | w | l | (vowel) | |||||
| Flap | ɽ | ||||||||
Unlike many languages with denti-alveolar stops, Iaai /t̪/ and /d̪/ are released abruptly, and /t̪/ has a very short voice onset time. However, the apical post-alveolar and laminal palatal stops /ʈ/, /ɖ/, /c/, /ɟ/ have substantially fricated releases, and are therefore pronounced between stops and affricates /ʈʂ/, /ɖʐ/, /cç/, /ɟʝ/.
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 or labial-velar. /ɥ/, /ɥ̊/ are sometimes pronounced with slight frication, and therefore may be argued to lie between palatalized bilabial fricatives /ɸʲ/, /βʲ/ and approximants /ɥ/, /ɥ̊/.
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 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 /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.