West Uvean (also Uvean or Faga Ouvéa; ''Fagauvea'' in the vernacular) is a Polynesian outlier language spoken on the island of

Ouvéa Ouvéa () or Uvea is a commune in the Loyalty Islands Province of New Caledonia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. The settlement of Fayaoué , on Ouvéa Island, is the administrative centre of the commune. Geography Ouv ...

, in the

Loyalty Loyalty is a Fixation (psychology), devotion to a country, philosophy, group, or person. Philosophers disagree on what can be an object of loyalty, as some argue that loyalty is strictly interpersonal and only another human being can be the obj ...

island group 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 ...

, and in the capital of Nouméa. West Uvean has been studied by linguists Françoise Ozanne-Rivierre and

Claire Moyse-Faurie Claire Moyse-Faurie (born 7 October 1949) is a French linguist specializing in Oceanic languages, in particular the languages of Wallis and Futuna and of New Caledonia. Education, career and honours Moyse-Faurie studied with the linguist Andr ...

Name

The speakers designate their language by the name Fagauvea, which is also the name used in French. The name ''West Uvean'' sometimes used in English is meant to distinguish the language from the related ''East Uvean'' or Wallisian, spoken on

Wallis Island Wallis () is a Polynesian atoll/island in the Pacific Ocean belonging to the French overseas collectivity (''collectivité d'outre-mer'', or ''COM'') of Wallis and Futuna. It lies north of Tonga, northeast of Fiji, east-northeast of the Hoorn ...

(Uvea).

Phonology

West Uvean has long been in contact with Iaai, the Southern Oceanic language also spoken on the same island. This contact has resulted in four vowels being added to the phonemic system of West Uvean; and to a complexification of the syllable structure, allowing for final consonants. // is only heard in intervocalic position.

Grammar

Numeral system

West Uvean is the only Polynesian language to use a

quinary Quinary (base 5 or pental) is a numeral system with five as the base. A possible origination of a quinary system is that there are five digits on either hand. In the quinary place system, five numerals, from 0 to 4, are used to represent any ...

numeral system. While Polynesian languages historically have a decimal system, West Uvean evolved to a quinary system, under influence of its Iaai neighbour. There are two sets of numerals from 11 to 20, the second way was the archaic form. Nowadays, the West Uvea or Faga Uvea people use French or Iaai numeral systems more frequently.

External links

Audio recordings and texts in the West Uvean language
in

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

(''

Pangloss Collection The Pangloss Collection is a digital library whose objective is to store and facilitate access to audio recordings in endangered languages of the world. Developed by the LACITO centre of CNRS in Paris, the collection provides free online access ...

''), by linguists Françoise Ozanne-Rivierre and

References

Futunic languages Languages of New Caledonia {{CPacific-lang-stub