Wallisian
Sign in to saveAlso known as Wallisian language, East 'Uvean, Lea faka'uvea, wls, East Uvean
Polynesian language spoken in Wallis island
Key facts
- Native to
- Wallis and Futuna , France
- Native speakers
- (10,400 cited 2000)
- Language family
- Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Polynesian Nuclear Polynesian Wallisian
- Iso 639 3
- wls
- Glottolog
- wall1257
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
Show 4 more facts
- native label
- Lea faka'uvea
- Wikimedia language code
- wls
- P10369
- 1004
via Wikidata · CC0
~14 min read
Article
Wallisian, or ʻUvean (Wallisian: Fakaʻuvea), is the Polynesian language spoken on Wallis Island (also known as ʻUvea). 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.