Ajië language

Ajië
Ajië
Region	Houailou, New Caledonia
Native speakers	5,400 (2009 census)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic New Caledonian – Loyalties New Caledonian Southern South Southern Wailic Ajië; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	aji
Glottolog	ajie1238
	Ajië is not endangered according to the classification system of the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Ajië (also known as Houailou (Wailu), Wai, and A'jie) is an Oceanic language spoken in New Caledonia. It has approximately 4,000 speakers.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial		Alveolar		Palatal	Velar		Glottal
		nor.	lab.	Alveolar		Palatal	nor.	lab.	Glottal
Stop	voiceless	p	pʷ	t		c	k	kʷ	(ʔ)
Stop	prenasal	ᵐb	ᵐbʷ	ⁿd		ᶮɟ	ᵑɡ	ᵑɡʷ
Nasal		m	mʷ	n		ɲ	ŋ
Fricative		v	vʷ				ɣ
Rhotic				ɾ	r
Approximant				l		j		w

A glottal stop only appears after oral vowels. Different speakers may realize /v/ as a bilabial sound /β/. Glide sounds [ɹ, ɻ] are heard as allophones of /r/.^[2]^[3]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		ɯ	u
High-mid	e	ə	o
Low-mid	ɛ		ʌ	ɔ
Low		a

Glottalized vowels
	Front	Central	Back
High	iˀ		ɯˀ	uˀ
High-mid	eˀ	əˀ	oˀ
Low-mid	ɛˀ		ʌˀ	ɔˀ
Low		aˀ

In addition to this, vowel length is phonetically distinct in Ajië, bringing an additional sixteen vowels for a total of forty-eight total vowels. Only the plain oral and nasal vowels are displayed for simplicity.

Nasal vowels
	Front	Central	Back
High	ĩ		ɯ̃	ũ
High-mid	ẽ	ə̃	õ
Low-mid	ɛ̃		ʌ̃	ɔ̃
Low		ã

References

^ Ajië at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ Tryon, Darrell T.; Aramiou, Sylvain; Euritein, Jean (1995). A'jië. In Darrell T. Tryon (ed.), Comparative Austronesian dictionary: an introduction to Austronesian studies, part 1: fascicle 1: Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 859–865.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
^ de La Fontinelle, Jacqueline (1976). La langue de Houailou, Nouvelle-Calédonie: description phonologique et description syntaxique. Peeters Publishers.

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[e18-1] Ajië at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)

[2] Tryon, Darrell T.; Aramiou, Sylvain; Euritein, Jean (1995). A'jië. In Darrell T. Tryon (ed.), Comparative Austronesian dictionary: an introduction to Austronesian studies, part 1: fascicle 1: Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 859–865.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)

[3] La Fontinelle, Jacqueline (1976). La langue de Houailou, Nouvelle-Calédonie: description phonologique et description syntaxique. Peeters Publishers.

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