This page was produced in collaboration with Claire Moyse-Faurie (Director of Research, LACITO-CNRS) .

Data on Haméa-tîrî

Haméa and Tîrî are two dialects of the same language

Alternative names: Different names of the two dialects:

– Haméa, Xaa Méa (Language of Méa) et Xâyââ (Xârâcùù name given by the people of Canala)

– Tîrî (spelt ‘tinrin’ by Osumi), Tiri, Cîîrî, Language of Couli.

Geographic area: New Caledonia, in the Xârâcùù custom area.

Haméa is spoken in a handful of villages at the bottom of the Kouaoua River Valley (Konoé-Chaoué, Wérupimé, Waabe) and in Katrikoin, on the other side of the central mountain range in Moindou commune. Haméa was formerly spoken in other villages, in particular Méa-Mébara, a fact which is reflected in the name of the village; though there are no longer any active speakers there. Surrounded by two ‘large’ languages – Ajië to the north and Xârâcùù to the South – the Haméa linguistic area has gradually grown smaller. Tîrî is spoken in Couli/Sarraméa in Petit Couli and Grand Couli and, mixed with other languages, in La Foa, Pocquereux, Katrikoin and Sarraméa.

Classification: As with all Kanak languages (with the exception of West Uvean/Fagauvea), Haméa-Tîrî is part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian Family. The Kanak languages of Grande Terre and the Loyalty Islands form a sub-group of this Oceanic branch. Amongst the other languages of Grand Terre, Haméa-Tîrî is part of the Southern languages group, along with Ajië, Xârâcùù and Xârâgurè.

Number of speakers: No more than 300 speakers of Haméa according to Claire Moyse-Fauri (C.P.) and about the same for Tîrî. The census of 2009 identifies 596 speakers of Tîrî over the age of 14, figures which also include speakers of Haméa. This number includes a dozen or so speakers who reside in Nouméa or in surrounding communities.

Vitality and transmission: UNESCO considers both Tîrî and Haméa “severely endangered”. As mentioned earlier, the Haméa linguistic area is continuously growing smaller, under pressure from other Kanak languages such as Xârâcùù (widely used as a lingua franca in the Xârâcùù Aire coutumière) and Ajië.

Literature: G.W. Grace published a dictionary in 1976 which also included both entries common to both Tîrî and Haméa, which he calls Mea, and entries which are specific to each of the varieties. M. Osumi published a grammar in 1995. Aside from the narrative included in the appendix of that grammar, a story called “The Eagles of Meïo” has been published in Tîrî by Edmond Kawa. The ethnologist P. Pillon has published several articles based on his study of the “vivaa” oral tradition of the Méa-Mébara region (see for example Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 94 : 81-101).

The production of a thematic Haméa-French dictionary is underway, a collaboration of the North Province and LACITO.

Media: Additionally, the Sorosoro programme spent time creating an audiovisual production in Haméa in October-November 2010. Production of several short films based on the images and sounds collected at the time is currently ongoing. These will be, to our knowledge, the first audiovisual resources available in Haméa.

Bibliography

GRACE, George W. 1976. Grand Couli Dictionary. Canberra, Australian National University, Pacific Linguistics C-12.

MOYSE-FAURIE, Claire, to be published. Dictionnaire thématique haméa-français, précédé d’une introduction grammaticale. Province Nord de la Nouvelle-Calédonie.

NÉMOUARÉ, Yasmina, 2003. Proposition d’écriture et lexique du haméa (Kouaoua). Nouméa, Agence de Développement de la Culture Kanak, Programme 2003 de collecte des traditions orales de l’aire xârâcùù.

OSUMI, Midori, 1995. Tinrin Grammar. Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication n°25.

PILLON, Patrick, 2002. “Cérémonies de l’igname nouvelle, intégration sociale, modalités binaires et ternaires en pays Mèa (Nouvelle-Calédonie)”, Journal de la Société des Océanistes 114-115, 129-140.

Internet links

Article about Tîri (in French), on the Corpus de la parole website, by the General Commission on the French Language and the Languages of France (DGLFLF).