Ajië language

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.				nor.	lab.
Stop	voiceless	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	(Template:IPA link)
	prenasal	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Nasal		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Fricative		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link				Template:IPA link
Rhotic				Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Approximant				Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link

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/.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
High-mid	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Low-mid	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Low		Template:IPA link

Glottalized vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
High-mid	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Low-mid	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Low		Template:IPA link

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	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
High-mid	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Low-mid	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Low		Template:IPA link

References

Template:SOceanic-lang-stub Template:NewCaledonia-stub