Drehu language
Drehu is an Austronesian language mostly spoken on Lifou Island, Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia. It has about twelve-thousand 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 French mainland. It has been also taught at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales in Paris since 1973 and at the since 2000. As for other Kanak languages, Drehu is now regulated by the "Académie des langues kanak", officially founded in 2007.
There is also a respectful register in Drehu, called qene miny. In time past, this was used to speak to the chiefs. Today very few people still know and practice this language.Phonology
Vowels
Consonants
occur only in loanwords.Writing system
Drehu was first written in the Latin script by the Polynesian and English missionaries of the London Missionary Society during the 1840s, with the help of the natives. The first complete Bible was published in 1890. The bible writing system didn't distinguish between the dental and the alveolar/retroflex 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.Grammar
Singular
- Eni/ni: I, me
- Eö/ö: you
- Nyipë/nyipëti: you
- Nyipo/nyipot: you
- Angeic: he, him, she
- Nyidrë/nyidrët: he, him
- Nyidro/nyidrot: you
- Ej: it
Dual
- Eaho/ho: we two
- Easho/sho : we two
- Epon/pon: you two
- Eahlo: they two
- Lue ej: they two for things and animals
Plural
- Eahun/hun: we, us
- Eashë/shë, easë/së: we all, all of us
- Epun/pun: you
- Angaatr: they, them
- Itre ej: they, them
