Cèmuhî language

Cèmuhî
Cèmuhî
Wagap
Native to	New Caledonia
Region	Touho: east coast from Congouma to Wagap and inland valleys
Native speakers	2,600 (2009)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic New Caledonian – Loyalties New Caledonian Northern New Caledonian Central Northern Cèmuhî; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Writing system	Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cam
Glottolog	cemu1238
	Cèmuhî is not endangered according to the classification system of the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Cèmuhî (Camuhi, Camuki, Tyamuhi, Wagap) is an Oceanic language spoken on the island of New Caledonia, in the area of Poindimié, Koné, and Touho. The language has approximately 3,300 speakers and is considered a regional language of France.

Cèmuhî was studied by the French linguist Jean-Claude Rivierre [fr].

Phonology

Consonants

The consonants of Cèmuhî are shown in the table below.^[2]

Consonant phonemes
	labiovelar	labial	alveolar	palatal	velar	laryngeal
Voiceless stop	pʷ	p	t	c	k
Prenasalized stop	ᵐbʷ	ᵐb	ⁿd	ᶮɟ	ᵑg
Nasal	mʷ, h̃ʷ	m	n	ɲ	ŋ	h̃
Continuant	w		(r), l			(h)

Rivierre analyzes the contrasts of Cèmuhî along three emic categories: nasal, semi-nasal (i.e. prenasalized), and oral consonants.^[2] He uses the established term "labiovelar" (reproduced in the table) for what can be described more exactly as labial-velarized (protruded) bilabial consonants.

Vowels

The chart below shows Cèmuhî vowels, all of which can contrast in length.^[2] While all vowels are phonetically nasalized after a nasal consonant, only two nasal vowels are reported to be contrastive: /ɛ̃ ~ ã/ and /õ ~ ũ/.^[3]

Vowels
	oral		nasal
	front	back	front	back
Close	i	u		õ ~ ũ
Close-mid	e	o		õ ~ ũ
Open-mid	ɛ	ɔ	ɛ̃ ~ ã
Open	a		ɛ̃ ~ ã

Tone

Like its neighbour Paicî, Cèmuhî is one of the few Austronesian languages which have developed contrastive tone. However, unlike other New Caledonian tonal languages, Cèmuhî has three tonal registers: high, mid, and low tones.^[4]^[2]

Notes

^ Cèmuhî at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Rivierre 1980.
^ Rivierre 1983, p. 27.
^ Rivierre 1972.

Bibliography

Rivierre, Jean-Claude (1972). "Les tons de la langue de Touho (Nouvelle-Calédonie) : Etude diachronique". Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris (in French). 67 (1): 301–316.
—— (1980). La Langue de Touho : Phonologie et grammaire du Cèmuhî (Nouvelle-Calédonie) (in French). Paris: Société d'Etudes Linguistiques et Anthropologiques de France. p. 363.
—— (1983). Dictionnaire cèmuhî – français, suivi d'un lexique français – cèmuhî (in French). Paris: Société d'Etudes Linguistiques et Anthropologiques de France. p. 375.