Revision as of 21:04, 13 August 2009 by Rosbot(talk | contribs)(New page: <table valign=top> <tr> <td valign=top align=left width="50%"> <table valign=top> <tr><td><b>Also Known As:</b> Woleaian <b>Description:</b> Woleaian is the main lan...)
Woleaian is the main language of the island of Woleai and surrounding smaller islands in the state of Yap of the Federated States of Micronesia. Woleaian is a Trukic language, and within that family its closest relative is Satawalese, with which it is largely mutually intelligible. Woleaian is divided into two dialects: Woleaian proper and Lamotrek. There are approximately 1700 speakers of Woleaian.
Woleai has a writing system of its own, a syllabary influenced in part by Latin letters.
Woleaian has geminate (long) consonants and vowels.
In the orthography of Sohn (1975), along with a few approximations in the IPA, the inventory is,
Note that both sh and r become ch when long, and that l becomes nn.
Vowels occur long and short, except for eo and oa, which are only found long.