Cèmuhî language

Cèmuhî (Camuhi, Camuki, Tyamuhi, Wagap) is an Oceanic language spoken on the island of New Caledonia, in the area of Poindimié, Koné, and Touho. The language has approximately 3,300 speakers and is considered a regional language of France.

Cèmuhî was studied by the French linguist Jean-Claude Rivierre [fr].

The consonants of Cèmuhî are shown in the table below.

Rivierre analyzes the contrasts of Cèmuhî along three emic categories: nasal, semi-nasal (i.e. prenasalized), and oral consonants. He uses the established term "labiovelar" (reproduced in the table) for what can be described more exactly as labial-velarized (protruded) bilabial consonants.

The chart below shows Cèmuhî vowels, all of which can contrast in length. While all vowels are phonetically nasalized after a nasal consonant, only two nasal vowels are reported to be contrastive: /ɛ̃ ~ ã/ and /õ ~ ũ/.

Like its neighbour Paicî, Cèmuhî is one of the few Austronesian languages which have developed contrastive tone. However, unlike other New Caledonian tonal languages, Cèmuhî has three tonal registers: high, mid, and low tones.

• Northern New Caledonian languages

• Rivierre, Jean-Claude (1972). "Les tons de la langue de Touho (Nouvelle-Calédonie) : Etude diachronique". Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris (in French). 67 (1): 301–316.
• —— (1980). La Langue de Touho : Phonologie et grammaire du Cèmuhî (Nouvelle-Calédonie) (in French). Paris: Société d'Etudes Linguistiques et Anthropologiques de France. p. 363.
• —— (1983). Dictionnaire cèmuhî – français, suivi d'un lexique français – cèmuhî (in French). Paris: Société d'Etudes Linguistiques et Anthropologiques de France. p. 375.

• Audio recordings in the Cèmuhî language, in open access, by Jean-Claude Rivierre (source: Pangloss Collection).