The Nemi language is a
Kanak language of the
Austronesian language family
The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken b ...
spoken by 320 people in the north of
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 ...
, in the commune of
Hienghène. Dialects include Ouanga, Ouélis, and Kavatch.
Phonology
The phonology of Nemi is as follows:
[Rivierre, Françoise. 1975. Phonologie du némi (Nouvelle-Calédonie) et notes sur les consonnes postnasalisées. '' Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris'' 70. 345-356.]
Note that the 'labiovelar' consonants are labialized and velarized bilabial consonants (with the exception of and its voiceless, nasal, and voiceless nasal counterparts, which are
labial-velar approximants.).
The vowel /a/ actually represents the low central unrounded vowel, [], and not the low front unrounded vowel, [].
References
Bibliography
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External links
Information about the Nemi language
New Caledonian languages
Languages of New Caledonia
Definitely endangered languages
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