The Nemi language is a Kanak language of the Austronesian language family spoken by 320 people in the north of New Caledonia, in the commune of Hienghène. Dialects include Ouanga, Ouélis, and Kavatch.
The phonology of Nemi is as follows:
As is common in Oceanic linguistics, the term 'labiovelar' encompasses two classes of consonants: six velarized bilabial occlusives ; and four labialâÂÂvelar approximants .
The phoneme possibly corresponds to an etymological , a phonological gap.
Some speakers have a simplified inventory of consonants in medial position, with oral occlusives and voiceless continuants generally merging into voiced continuants and (in the case of alveolars) the vibrant, and postnasalized and voiceless nasal occlusives into voiced nasals, with the exception of loanwords. For those speakers, a similar allophonic free variation can also produce , , and in initial positions in less careful speech.
In final position, only eight phonemes contrast: .
Vowels may be allophonically nasalized before prenasalized consonants and after nasal and postnasalized consonants. The vowel /u/ is fronted before /v/.
Lexical stress generally falls on the initial syllable.