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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.
Phonology
Woleaian has geminate (long) consonants and vowels.
In the orthography of Sohn (1975), along with a few approximations in the IPA, the inventory is,
| short oral consonant | b [ɸʷ] | p | f | t | s | l | sh [ʃ] | r | g [x] |
| equivalent geminate | bb [pːʷ] | pp | ff | tt | ss | nn [nː] | ch [tʃ] | k [kː] | |
| nasal consonant | mw [mʷ] | m | n | ng [ŋ] | |||||
| semivowel | w | y [j] | |||||||
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.
| i | iu [y] | u |
| e | eo [øː] | o |
| a | oa [ɑː] |
Further reading
Sohn, H.M. 1975. Woleaian Reference Grammar. University of Hawaii Press.
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