The Iaai language is a language of Ouvéa Island

Ouvéa Island

Ouvéa Island is one of the Loyalty Islands, in the archipelago of New Caledonia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. The island is part of the commune of Ouvéa, in the Islands Province of New Caledonia.-Geography:...

, New Caledonia

New Caledonia

New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...

. Although it had only 1,500 speakers as of 1996, it is becoming taught in schools in New Caledonia in an effort to preserve it.

Iaai is remarkable for its large inventory of unusual phonemes, which include one of the few certain cases of front rounded vowels outside of their geographic stronghold in Eurasia

Eurasia

Eurasia is a continent or supercontinent comprising the traditional continents of Europe and Asia ; covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres...

 north of the Himalayas

Himalayas

The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

. It also has an unusually rich variety of voiceless nasals and approximants; it may be the only language in the world to possess a voiceless retroflex nasal.

Given its presence near the only Polynesian languages spoken in New Caledonia - Polynesian languages being known for small phoneme inventories - Iaai's large phoneme inventory seems very surprising and the explanation for the unusual phonemes of many Kanak languages still is not known.

Vowels

Iaai has ten vowel qualities, all of which may occur long and short. There is little difference in quality depending on length.

	Front unrounded Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...	Front rounded Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...	Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel...	Back unrounded Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...	Back rounded Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...	i iː	y yː			u uː
Close mid Close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel...	e eː	ø øː		ɤ ɤː	o oː
Open mid Open-mid vowel An open-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel...		[œ œː]			ɔ ɔː
Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...	æ æː		a aː

The vowel /ø øː/ is only known to occur in a half dozen words. In all of these but /ɲ̊øːk/ "dedicate", it appears between a labial (b, m) and velar (k, ŋ) consonant.

After the plain (palatalized?) labial consonants and the vowel /y yː/, the vowel /ɔ ɔː/ is pronounced [œ œː].

The open vowels only contrast in a few environments. /æ æː/ only occurs after the plain labial consonants and the vowel /y yː/, the same environment that produces [œ œː]. /a aː/ does not occur after /ɥ ɥ̊ y yː/, but does occur elsewhere, so that there is a contrast between /æ æː/ and /a aː/ after /b p m m̥ f/.

The vowels /i e ø a o u/ are written with their IPA letters. /y/ is written û, /æ/ is written ë, /ɔ/ is written â, and /ɤ/ is written ö. Long vowels, which are twice as long as short vowels, are written double.

Consonants

Iaai has an unusual voicing distinction in its sonorants, as well as several coronal

Coronal consonant

Coronal consonants are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical , laminal , domed , or subapical , as well as a few rarer orientations, because only the front of the tongue has such...

 series. Unlike most languages of New Caledonia, voiced stops are not prenasalized.

(Palatalized Palatalization In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate.... ) labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...	Labialized labial	Denti- alveolar Denti-alveolar In linguistics, a denti-alveolar consonant is a consonant that is articulated with a flat tongue against the alveolar ridge and upper teeth, such as and in languages such as Spanish and French...	Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...	Retroflex Retroflex consonant A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...	Pre-palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....	Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
Stop Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...	Voiceless	p		t̪		ʈ	c	k
	Voiced	(b)	bʷ	d̪		ɖ	ɟ	ɡ
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...	Voiceless	m̥	m̥ʷ	n̪̥		ɳ̊	ɲ̊	ŋ̊
	Voiced	m	mʷ	n̪		ɳ	ɲ	ŋ
Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...	Voiceless	f		θ	s		ʃ	x
	Voiced			ð
Approximant	Voiceless	ɥ̊	w̥		l̥				h
	Voiced	ɥ	w		l				(vowel)
Flap Flap consonant In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:...						ɽ

Unlike many languages with denti-alveolar

Denti-alveolar

In linguistics, a denti-alveolar consonant is a consonant that is articulated with a flat tongue against the alveolar ridge and upper teeth, such as and in languages such as Spanish and French...

 stops, Iaai /t̪/ and /d̪/ are released abruptly, and /t̪/ has a very short voice onset time

Voice onset time

In phonetics, voice onset time, commonly abbreviated VOT, is a feature of the production of stop consonants. It is defined as the length of time that passes between when a stop consonant is released and when voicing, the vibration of the vocal folds, or, according to the authors, periodicity begins...

. However, the apical

Apical consonant

An apical consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the apex of the tongue . This contrasts with laminal consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the blade of the tongue .This is not a very common distinction, and typically applied only to fricatives...

 post-alveolar and laminal palatal stops /ʈ/, /ɖ/, /c/, /ɟ/ have substantially fricated releases, and are therefore pronounced between stops and affricates /ʈʂ/, /ɖʐ/, /cç/, /ɟʝ/.

The labial approximants are placed in their respective columns following their phonological behaviour (their effects on following vowels), but there is evidence that all members of these series are either labial-palatal or labial-velar. /ɥ/, /ɥ̊/ are sometimes pronounced with slight frication, and therefore may be argued to lie between palatalized bilabial fricatives /ɸʲ/, /βʲ/ and approximants /ɥ/, /ɥ̊/.

In many cases, words with voiced and voiceless approximants are morphologically related, such as /liʈ/ "night" and /l̥iʈ/ "black". /h/- and vowel-initial words have a similar relationship. The voiceless sonorant often marks object incorporation. However, many roots with voiceless sonorants have no voiced cognate.

The labialized labials are more precisely labio-velarized labials. There is evidence that non-labialized labial consonants such as /m/ are palatalized

Palatalization

In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....

 /pʲ/, /mʲ/, etc., but this is obscured before front vowels. If this turns out to be the situation, it would parallel Micronesian languages

Micronesian languages

The family of Micronesian languages is a branch of the Oceanic languages. It consists of twenty languages, the nineteen Micronesian Proper languages and Nauruan...

which have no plain labials.