Wallisian language
- This article deals with the language of Wallis Island, "Wallisian," also known as "Fakauvea" or "East Uvean." For the similarly named language of Ouvéa, New Caledonia, see West Uvean (Fagauvea).
| Wallisian | |
|---|---|
| Fakaʻuvea | |
| Native to |  Wallis and Futuna |
Native speakers | 29,968 |
Austronesian
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | wls |
Wallisian or ʻUvean (Template:Lang-wls) is the Polynesian language spoken on Wallis Island (also known as ʻUvea). The language is also known as East Uvean to distinguish it from the related West Uvean spoken on the outlier island of Ouvéa (near New Caledonia). Wallisian tradition holds that the latter island was colonised from Wallis Island in ancient times.
Classified by linguists as a Nuclear Polynesian language, Wallisian is closely related to other Polynesian languages including Tongan and Samoan.
Alphabet
The standard 5 vowels: a, e, i, o, u, with their lengthened variants: ā, ē, ī, ō, ū.
The consonants: f, g (always pronounced as ŋ (ng)), h, k, l, m, n, s (rare, usually from foreign words), t, v, '.
The ʻ, representing the glottal stop (see also okina), is known in Wallisian as fakamoga (belonging to the throat). The fakamoga is nowadays taught at schools, and can be written with straight, curly or inverted curly apostrophes. Similarly the macron (Wallisian: fakaloa, 'to lengthen') is now taught in schools to mark long vowels, even though the older generation has never marked the glottal stop or vowel length.
For example: Mālō te ma'uli (hello)
Vocabulary
| Polynesian sound correspondence | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phoneme | Wallisian | Tongan | Samoan | Malagasy | English | |||||
| /ŋ/ | tagata | tangata | tagata | ranada | person, people | |||||
| /s/ | hina | hina | sina | sina (fotsy) | 'white'/grey hair | |||||
| /ti/ | siale | siale | tiale | fialy | gardenia (flower) | |||||
| /k/ | vaka | vaka | vaʻa | baka | traditional canoe/ship | |||||
| /f/ | fafine | fafine | fafine | vaviny | woman | |||||
| /ʔ/ | matu'ā | motuʻa | matua | matoa | parent/parents | |||||
| /r/ | lua | ua | lua | roa | two | |||||
| /l/ | tolu | tolu | tolu | telo | three | |||||
External links
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