Wallisian, or Uvean (), is the Polynesian language spoken on Wallis Island (also known as Uvea). The language is also known as East Uvean to distinguish it from the related West Uvean language spoken on the outlier island of Ouvéa near New Caledonia. The latter island was colonised from Wallis Island in the 18th century.
Indigenous to Wallis island, the language is also spoken in New Caledonia since the 1950s due to a migration of many Wallisians (especially in Nouméa, Dumbéa, La Foa, and Mont Dore). According to the CIA World Factbook, it had 7,660 speakers in 2015. However, Livingston (2016) states that the actual number of speakers is much higher (around 20,000), albeit difficult to count precisely.
The closest language to Wallisian is Niuafo'ou. It is also closely related to Tongan, though part of the Samoic branch, and has borrowed extensively from Tongan due to the Tongan invasion of the island in the 15th and 16th centuries. Uvea was settled about 3,000 years ago.
Alphabet
Wallisian has 10 vowels: the standard 5 vowels: /a, e, i, o, u/ and their lengthened variants: ā, ē, ī, ō, ū.
Writing
The , representing the glottal stop (see also okina), is known in Wallisian as (: causative prefix, : Adam's apple). The can be written with straight, curly or inverted curly apostrophes. Similarly the macron () is used to mark long vowels but isn't always written.
For example: (hello) can be written .
Wallisian was only an oral language until contact with Westerners. The first Wallisian vocabulary was created by French missionary Pierre Bataillon in 1840 and revised in 1871 but published only in 1932. German linguist Karl Rensch used Bataillon's work as the basis for his 1948 Wallisian-French dictionary, in which he chose not to use the macron.
Vocabulary
Registers
In Wallisian, there are three registers: the honorific language is used by both commoners and royals themselves. The royalty use it as it is the chiefly language and the commoners use it when talking to either a royal or when talking to God. The honorific language is also used by commoners when talking about God or about a royal figure regardless of their presence. The second language is the commoner language which is what is considered “ordinary” Wallisian, and finally, there is vulgar or derogatory language. For example, the word for “to remain” in honorific, commoner, and vulgar registers are respectively , , & . Each of the three are used in their respective circumstances.
History and classification
Wallisian is a Polynesian language that comes from Proto-Polynesian. However, its classification has been a subject of debate among scholars. Due to its proximity with Tongan language, Wallisian has sometimes been classified within the Tongic subgroup (Elbert, 1953), but later linguists stated it belonged to the Nuclear Polynesian group: Pawley and Green (1966), Bruce Biggs (1978) and Jeffrey Marck (2000).
The closest language to Wallisian is the Niuafo'ou language, spoken on the island of Niuafo'ou (Northern Tonga, Niuas group). Intercomprehension is very high between those two languages, due to intense contacts between both islands until the mid-20th century.
Influence from other languages
Influence from Tongan
Wallisian is related to Rennellese. It is also closely related to Tongan, because of former Tonga invasions in Wallis. For instance, the past form ne'e comes from Tongan. Wallisian is very closely related to Tongan, while Futunan is more closely related to Samoan.
Influence from English
During the 19th century, a form of pidgin English was used by Wallisians to communicate with traders, mainly due to the fact that the natives of Wallis and Futuna had a lot of contact with New England whaling ships as they frequently stopped at Wallis and Futuna. Currently, there are about 70 pidgin words that are still in use on Wallis island. In 1937 however, an infestation of coconut beetles on Wallis island scared many of the trade partners of Wallis island who happened to have been mainly English. Trade to Fiji, for example, was halted because of the infestation. Loanwords included European foods (laisi "rice", suka "sugar") and objects (pepa "paper"), but also some animals (hosi "horse").
Influence from English grew stronger after the American army set a military base on the island in 1942. Loanwords such as puna ("spoon"), motoka ("car", from motor car), famili ("family"), suka ("sugar"), peni ("pen"), tini ("tin"), etc. have integrated the Wallisian language.