Ajië (also known as ''Houailou (Wailu)'', ''Wai'', and ''A'jie'') is an
Oceanic language spoken in
New Caledonia
New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...
. It has approximately 4,000 speakers.
Phonology
Consonants
A
glottal stop
The glottal stop or glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many Speech communication, spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic ...
only appears after oral vowels. Different speakers may realize /v/ as a
bilabial sound /β/.
Glide sounds
�, ɻare heard as
allophones of /r/.
Vowels
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.
References
New Caledonian languages
Languages of New Caledonia
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