Iaai language

Iaai
Hwen iaai
Region	Ouvéa Island,New Caledonia
Native speakers	4,100 (2009 census)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic New Caledonian – Loyalties Loyalty Islands Iaai
Language codes
ISO 639-3	iai
Glottolog	iaai1238
Iaai is not endangered according to the classification system of theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Iaai(Iaai pronunciation:[jaːi]in English as⫽ˈjaɪ⫽Y-EYE) is a language ofOuvéa Island(New Caledonia). It shares the island of Ouvéa withFagauvea,aPolynesian outlierlanguage.

Iaai is the sixth-most-spoken language of New Caledonia, with 4078 speakers as of 2009.It is taught in schools in an effort to preserve it.

The language has been studied by linguistsFrançoise Ozanne-Rivierreand 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.

Vowels

Monophthongsof Iaai on a vowel chart, fromMaddieson & Anderson (1994:164)

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

	Front		Central	Back
	Unrounded	Rounded		Unrounded	Rounded
Close	iiː	yyː			uuː
Close mid	eeː	øøː		ɤɤː	ooː
Open mid		[œ][œː]			ɔɔː
Open	ææː		aaː

Iaai constitutes one of the few cases offront rounded vowelsattested outside of their geographic stronghold inEurasia,even if other cases have since been reported in the Oceanic family.

The vowel/øøː/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/yyː/,the vowel/ɔɔː/is pronounced[œœː].

The open vowels only contrast in a few environments./ææː/only occurs after the plain labial consonants and the vowel/yyː/,the same environment that produces[œœː]./aaː/does not occur after/ɥɥ̊yyː/,but does occur elsewhere, so that there is a contrast between/ææː/and/aaː/after/bpmm̥f/.

The vowels/ieøaou/are written with their IPA letters./y/is writtenû,/æ/is writtenë,/ɔ/is writtenâ,and/ɤ/is writtenö.Long vowels, which are twice as long as short vowels, are written double.

Consonants

Iaai has an unusual voicing distinction in itssonorants,as well as severalcoronalseries. Unlike most languages of New Caledonia, voiced stops are notprenasalized.

		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	m̥(m̥ʲ)	m̥ʷ(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 withdenti-alveolarstops, Iaai/t̪,d̪/are released abruptly, and/t̪/has a very shortvoice onset time.However, theapicalpost-alveolar and laminal palatal stops/ʈ,ɖ,c,ɟ/have substantially fricated releases[ʈᶳ,ɖᶼ,cᶜ̧,ɟᶨ],and may be better described as sounds between proper stops and affricates.

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 eitherlabial-palatalorlabial-velar./ɥ̊,ɥ/are sometimes pronounced as weak fricatives[ɸʲ,βʲ].

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 marksobject 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/arepalatalized/pʲ/,/mʲ/,etc.,but this is obscured before front vowels. If this turns out to be the situation, it would parallelMicronesian languageswhich have no plain labials.

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.doi:10.1353/ol.2017.0017.ISSN1527-9421.S2CID148949180.Retrieved2023-07-20.
• 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 (Pangloss CollectionofLACITO-CNRS).
• Presentation of Iaai,including an extensive bibliography.
• Database of audio recordings in Iaai - basic Catholic prayers
• Iaai Grammarat the Internet Archive