| Paicî | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spoken in | New Caledonia | |||
| Region | East coast between Poindimié and Ponérihouen and inland valleys | |||
| Native speakers | 5,500 (date missing) | |||
| Language family |
Austronesian
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| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | pri | |||
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The Paicî language is the most widely spoken of the two dozen languages on the main island of New Caledonia. It is spoken in a band across the center of the island.
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Paicî has a rather simple inventory of consonants, compared to other languages of New Caledonia, but it has an unusually large number of nasal vowels. (Gordon 1996)
Paicî syllables are restricted to CV. (Gordon 1996)
| Bilabial | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | labial | |||||
| Nasal | m | mʷ | n̠ | ɲ | ŋ | |
| Plosive | voiceless | p | pʷ | t̠ | c | k |
| prenasalized | ᵐb | ᵐbʷ | ⁿ̠d̠ | ᶮɟ | ᵑɡ | |
| Tap | ɾ̠ | |||||
| Approximant | l̠ | j | w | |||
The palatal stops could be considered affricates since they occur with a heavily fricated release. The lateral and tap do not occur word initially except in a few loan words, and the prefix /ɾɜ/ they. (Gordon 1996)
Because nasal stops are always followed by nasal vowels, while prenasalized stops are always followed by oral vowels, it might be argued that nasal and prenasalized stops are allophonic. This would reduce the Paicî consonant inventory to 13.
Paicî has three tones: high, mid, low. Additionally, there are vowels with no inherent tone. (That is, their tone is determined by their environment.) Words commonly have the same tone on all vowels, so tone may belong to the word rather than the syllable.
Paicî has a symmetrical system of 10 oral vowels, all found both long and short without significant difference in quality, and seven nasal vowels, some of which may also be long and short. Because sequences of two short vowels may carry two tones, but long vowels are restricted to carrying a single tone, these do appear to be phonemically long vowels rather than sequences. (Gordon 1996)
| Front | Central | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oral | Nasal | Oral | Nasal | Oral | Nasal | |
| Close | /i/ | /ĩ/ | /ɨ/ | /ɨ̃/ | /u/ | /ũ/ |
| Close-mid | /e/ | /ɛ̞̃/ | /ɘ/ | /ɜ̞̃/ | /o/ | /ɔ̞̃/ |
| Open-mid | /ɛ/ | /ɜ/ | /ɔ/ | |||
| Open | /a/ | /ɐ̃/ | ||||
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