Drehu (; also known as Dehu,In missionary time Lifou,In French Lifu,In English qene drehuQene means language (literally "qe" : mouth, "ne" : of)) is an Austronesian language mostly spoken on Lifou Island, Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia. It has about 12,000 fluent speakers and the status of a French regional language. This status means that pupils can take it as an optional topic for the baccalauréat in New Caledonia itself or on the French mainland.Only five of the twenty-eight Kanak languages (in the 1999 Rapport Cerquilini or 40 according to the Académie des langues kanak) have this status: Drehu (island of Lifou), Nengone (island of Maré), A'jië (around Houaïlou), Paicî (around Poindimié) and Xârâcùù (around Canala and Thio). It has been also taught at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO) in Paris since 1973 and at the University of New Caledonia since 2000. Like other Kanak languages, Drehu is regulated by the Académie des langues kanak, founded in 2007.
A separate register of Drehu, known as qene miny, was once used to speak to chiefs (joxu). Very few Drehu speakers know qene miny today.As Maurice Leenhardt did ("Langues et dialectes de l'Austro-Mélanésie" (1946), the Académie considers qene miny not only as a respective register but also a distinct language
Phonology
Vowels Front Central Back High Mid Open is heard as before nasals.
can sometimes be before nasals.
Consonants Bilabial Dental Alveolar Retroflex Alveopalatal Velar Glottal Nasals voiceless voiced Stops andaffricates voiceless voiced Fricatives voiceless voiced Approximants voiceless voiced
Writing system Drehu was first written in the Latin script by the PolynesianMost were from the Cook Islands. and English missionaries of the London Missionary Society during the 1840s, with the help of the native population. The first complete Bible 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 and are not dental but interdental consonants. The new writing system was created during the 1970s.
+Grapheme-phoneme correspondenceGraphemeaaabcddjdreeeëëëfghhlhmhnhnghnyiiijkPhonemeGraphemelmnngnyoooöööpqrsshtthtruuuvwxzPhoneme
Grammar
Personal pronouns
Singular Eni/ni: I, me Eö/ö: you Nyipë/nyipëti: you (a polite form of address to a chief (joxu)or an older man) Nyipo/nyipot(i): you (a polite form of address to an older woman) Angeic(e): he, him, she Nyidrë/nyidrët(i): he, him (a polite form of address to a chief (joxu)or an older man) Nyidro/nyidrot(i): you (a polite form of address to an older woman) Ej(e): it Dual Eaho/ho: we two (exclusive) Easho/sho (easo/so): we two (inclusive) Epon(i)/pon(i): you two Eahlo: they two Lue ej(e): they two for things and animals Plural Eahun(i)/hun(i): we, us (exclusive) Eashë/shë, easë/së: we all, all of us (inclusive) Epun(i)/pun(i): you Angaatr(e): they, them Itre ej(e): they, them (for things and animals)
Notes
Bibliography
Le drehu, langue de Lifou (Iles Loyauté): phonologie, morphologie, syntaxe. Maurice Lenormand, Dictionnaire de la langue de Lifou. Le Qene Drehu, 1999, Nouméa, Le Rocher-à-la-Voile, 533p Tryon, Darrell T. Dehu-English dictionary. C-6, vi + 142 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1967. Tryon, Darrell T. English-Dehu dictionary. C-7, iv + 165 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1967. Tryon, Darrell T. Dehu grammar. B-7, xii + 122 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1968.
External links
Read and listen to a traditional narrative in Drehu, in trilingual version (homepage of French CNRS-Lacito). Database of audio recordings in Drehu (Lifu) - basic Catholic prayers