Proofreading and additional data by Stéphanie Geneix-Rabault, Annick Kasovimoin and Weniko Ihage from the Académie des Langues Kanak.

Data on the Xârâgurè language

Geographical area: Xârâcùù custom area (aire coutumière) of New Caledonia. Xârâgurè is spoken at Thio-Mission (St-Philippo II), in parts of St-Michel, St-Pierre and St-Paul and in all the coastal villages between Thio and N’goye: Port Bouquet, Petit Borindi, Grand Borindi and St-Jean-Baptiste. Some speakers of Xârâgurè also live in Ouinané, on the West coast of the main island (la Grande Terre).

Classification: Like all Kanak languages (with the exception of Fagauvea), Xârâgurè belongs to the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian Language family. The Kanak languages of New Caledonia’s main island and the Loyalty Islands form a subgroup of the Oceanic branch. Within this branch, Xârâgurè belongs to the group of southern languages, alongside Ajië, Tîrî and Xârâcùù.

Number of speakers: According to the ISEE, there are 758 speakers of Xaragure over the age of 14.

Status: It is a regional (or local) language.

Written documents: There is no written tradition in Xârâgurè. The only documents are those produced as a result of the research done by linguist Claire Moyse-Faurie of the LACITO-CNRS centre, who has collected some texts in Xaragure and is currently working on developing a lexicon.

Teaching: Some experimental teaching in Xârâgurè was carried out at the Borindi Primary School (in the Thio district), under the PHAX programme.

Audio recordings: Moyse-Faurie recorded oral histories on audio cassette in 1976 and 1980. The 1980 recordings were used to create the Xârâgurè texts which feature on the CD-rom produced for the Tjibaou Cultural Centre (a CNRS-ADCK co-production).

Video recordings: The Sorosoro programme carried out a film shoot in October and November 2010 in the region in which Xaragure is spoken. The video shot at this time is the only existing footage of Xârâgurè.

Vitality and transmission: UNESCO considers Xârâgurè to be an endangered language (level 1 of 5 on their scale).

Linguistic information

Although lacking documentation, Xârâgurè resembles Xârâcùù closely enough that they share the same phonological system.

Bibliography

MOYSE-FAURIE C., 1980, “Textes en langue xârâgurè” in J.-C. Rivierre, F. Ozanne-Rivierre and C. Moyse-Faurie, Mythes et contes de la Grande Terre et des Iles Loyauté, Paris, SELAF, LACITO-documents Asie-Austronésie n°3, pp. 127-165 (in French)

LEONARD D. S. (dir.), 2005, Contes et légendes océaniens, collections Langues canaques 18, coéditions Vice-Rectorat MLCR/CDP-NC, 89p, p 32-33 (in French)

Links for further information

See the Xârâgurè page on the Corpus de la parole site produced by the DGLFLF (The French Government’s Commission for the French Language and languages of France) (in French).