| Drehu | |
|---|---|
| Region | Lifou,New Caledonia |
Native speakers | unknown; est. 13,000 includes manyL2 speakers (2009)[1] |
Austronesian
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | dhv |
| Glottolog | dehu1237 |
 Drehu is not endangered according to the classification system of theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Drehu (pronounced[ɖehu]; also known asDehu,[2]Lifou,[3]Lifu,[4]qene drehu[5]) is anAustronesian language mostly spoken onLifou Island,Loyalty Islands,New Caledonia. It has about 12,000 fluent speakers and the status of aFrench regional language. This status means that pupils can take it as an optional topic for thebaccalauréat inNew Caledonia itself or on theFrench mainland.[6] It has been also taught at theInstitut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO) inParis since 1973 and at theUniversity of New Caledonia[7] since 2000. Like otherKanak languages, Drehu is regulated by theAcadémie des langues kanak, founded in 2007.
A separateregister of Drehu, known asqene miny, was once used to speak tochiefs (joxu). Very few Drehu speakers knowqene miny today.[8]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | iiː | uuː | |
| Mid | eeː | øøː | ooː |
| Open | ææː | ɑɑː |
/e/ is heard as[ɛ] before nasals.
/ø/ can sometimes be[e] before nasals.
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Alveopalatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasals | voiceless | m̥ | n̥ | ɲ̊ | ŋ̊ | |||
| voiced | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||
| Stops and affricates | voiceless | p | t | ʈ | t͡ʃ | k | ||
| voiced | b[a] | d | ɖ | d͡ʒ[a] | ɡ | |||
| Fricatives | voiceless | f | θ | s | x | h | ||
| voiced | v[a] | ð | z | |||||
| Approximants | voiceless | ʍ | l̥ | |||||
| voiced | w | l | ||||||
Drehu was first written in theLatin script by thePolynesian[9] andEnglishmissionaries of theLondon Missionary Society during the 1840s, with the help of the natives. The first completeBible was published in 1890. The Bible writing system did not distinguish between the dental (written "d", "t") and the alveolar/retroflex ("dr" and "tr") consonants, which for a long time were written indifferently "d" and "t". In Drehu/θ/ and/ð/ are not dental butinterdental consonants. The new writing system was created during the 1970s.
| Grapheme-phoneme correspondence | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grapheme | a | aa | b | c | d | dj | dr | e | ee | ë | ëë | f | g | h | hl | hm | hn | hng | hny | i | ii | j | k | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Phoneme | /ɑ/ | /ɑː/ | /b/ | /c/ | /d̪/ | /ɟ/ | /d/ | /e/ | /eː/ | /ɛ/ | /ɛː/ | /f/ | /g/ | /h/ | /l̥/ | /m̥/ | /n̥/ | /ŋ̊/ | /ɲ̊/ | /i/ | /iː/ | /ð/ | /k/ | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Grapheme | l | m | n | ng | ny | o | oo | ö | öö | p | q | r | s | sh | t | th | tr | u | uu | v | w | x | z | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Phoneme | /l/ | /m/ | /n/ | /ŋ/ | /ɲ/ | /o/ | /oː/ | /ʌ/ | /ʌː/ | /p/ | /w̥/ | /r/ | /s/ | /ʃ/ | /t/ | /θ/ | /t/ | /u/ | /uː/ | /v/ | /w/ | /x/ | /z/ | |||||||||||||||||||||||
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding missing information.(June 2008) |
Singular
Dual
Plural
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