Iaai language

Iaai
Region Ouvéa Island, New Caledonia
Native speakers
 4,100  (2009 census)[1]
Austronesian
Language codes
ISO 639-3 iai
Glottolog iaai1238[2]

Iaai (pronounced [jaːi]) is a language of Ouvéa Island (New Caledonia). It shares the island of Ouvéa with Fagauvea, a Polynesian outlier language.

Iaai is the 6th language of New Caledonia in number of speakers, with 4078 speakers as of 2009.[3] It is being taught in schools in an effort to preserve it.

The main source of information about the language of Iaai are the various publications by the linguist Françoise Ozanne-Rivierre, from LACITO–CNRS.

Phonology

Iaai is remarkable for its large inventory of unusual phonemes,[4] in particular its consonants, with a rich variety of voiceless nasals and approximants. It may be the only language in the world to possess a voiceless retroflex nasal.

Vowels

Iaai has ten vowel qualities, all of which may occur long and short. There is little difference in quality depending on length.[5]

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

Iaai constitutes one of the few cases of front rounded vowels attested outside of their geographic stronghold in Eurasia,[6] even if other cases have since been reported in the Oceanic family.[7]

The vowel /ø øː/ is only known to occur in a half a dozen 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 sonorants, as well as several coronal series. Unlike most languages of New Caledonia, voiced stops are not prenasalized.[5]

(Palatalized)
labial		 Labiovelarized
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.

Notes

  1. ↑ Iaai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Iaai". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  3. ↑ Dotte 2012.
  4. ↑ The main sources about the phonology of Iaai are Ozanne-Rivierre (1976); Maddieson and Anderson (1994).
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 See Maddieson & Anderson (1994).
  6. ↑ Maddieson, Ian. Front Rounded Vowels, in Martin Haspelmath et al. (eds.) The World Atlas of Language Structures, pp. 50-53. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-19-925591-1. (online version).
  7. ↑ See for example Löyöp, Lemerig, Vurës of northern Vanuatu, p.194 of: François, Alexandre (2011), "Social ecology and language history in the northern Vanuatu linkage: A tale of divergence and convergence", Journal of Historical Linguistics 1 (2): 175–246, doi:10.1075/jhl.1.2.03fra.

References

External links