Yuanga language

Not to be confused with Juang language.

Yuanga
Native to	New Caledonia
Region	Nouméa, Isle of Pines
Native speakers	2,400 (2009 census)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic New Caledonian – Loyalties New Caledonian Northern Extreme Northern Yuanga
Language codes
ISO 639-3	nua
Glottolog	yuag1237
Yuanga is not endangered according to the classification system of the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Yuanga (Yuaga), or Nua, is a New Caledonian language spoken in the north of the island.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial		Dental/ Alveolar		Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
		plain	lab.	plain	pal.
Stop	voiceless	p	pʷ	t̪	tʲ	ʈ		k
	aspirated	pʰ	pʰʷ	t̪ʰ	tʲʰ	ʈʰ		kʰ
	prenasal	ᵐb	ᵐbʷ	ⁿ̪d̪	ⁿdʲ	ᶯɖ		ᵑɡ
Fricative	plain	v		θ				x	h
	aspirated	vʰ
Nasal	voiced	m	mʷ	n̪	nʲ			ŋ
	aspirated	mʰ	mʰʷ	n̪ʰ	nʲʰ
Approximant	voiced	w		l			j
	aspirated	wʰ		(lʰ)			jʰ

• [lʰ] is probably not a distinct phoneme, although it is perhaps perceived and heard among a few speakers.
• Stops /p, pʷ, t̪, tʲ/ may have voiced realizations [b, bʷ, d̪, dʲ] when in intervocalic position.
• /ʈ/ may be heard as voiced [ɖ] or a flapped [ɾ] in intervocalic position.
• /k/ in intervocalic position may be realized as a stop [ɡ] or fricated as either [ɣ] or [x].
• /vʰ/ may also be heard as voiceless [fʰ] in free variation.
• /θ, x/ may be voiced as [ð, ɣ] in intervocalic position.^[2]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i ĩ		u ũ
High-mid	e ẽ		o õ
Low-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Low		a ã

• /e/ may be heard as [ɪ] when following palatalized stops.
• /o/ may be heard as [ʊ] in free variation following consonants other than labio-velar stops.
• /ɔ/ is more closed as [ɔ̝] when following labio-velar stops and labio-velar nasals.^[2]

References

1. Yuanga at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Schooling, Stephen J. (1992). The phonology of Yuanga, a language of New Caledonia. In Malcolm D. Ross (ed.), Papers in Austronesian Linguistics 2: Canberra: Australian National University. pp. 97–146.