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.

Ajië
Region	Houailou, New Caledonia
Native speakers	5,400 (2009 census)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic New Caledonian – Loyalties New Caledonian Southern South Southern Wailic Ajië
Language codes
ISO 639-3	aji
Glottolog	ajie1238
Ajië is not endangered according to the classification system of the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial		Alveolar		Palatal	Velar		Glottal
		nor.	lab.				nor.	lab.
Stop	voiceless	p	pʷ	t		c	k	kʷ	(ʔ)
	prenasal	ᵐb	ᵐbʷ	ⁿd		ᶮɟ	ᵑɡ	ᵑɡʷ
Nasal		m	mʷ	n		ɲ	ŋ
Fricative		v	vʷ				ɣ
Rhotic				ɾ	r
Approximant				l		j		w

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/.^[2][3]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		ɯ	u
High-mid	e	ə	o
Low-mid	ɛ		ʌ	ɔ
Low		a

Glottalized vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	iˀ		ɯˀ	uˀ
High-mid	eˀ	əˀ	oˀ
Low-mid	ɛˀ		ʌˀ	ɔˀ
Low		aˀ

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	ĩ		ɯ̃	ũ
High-mid	ẽ	ə̃	õ
Low-mid	ɛ̃		ʌ̃	ɔ̃
Low		ã