Wallisian language
Polynesian language spoken in Wallis island
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.
The closest language to Wallisian is Niuafoʻou. It is also closely related to Tongan, though part of the Samoic branch, and has borrowed extensively from Tongan due to the Tongan invasion of the island in the 15th and 16th centuries. Uvea was settled about 3,000 years ago.
Alphabet
Wallisian has 10 vowels: the standard 5 vowels: /a, e, i, o, u/ and their lengthened variants: ā, ē, ī, ō, ū.
The public source identifies “Wallisian language” as polynesian language spoken in Wallis island. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Wallisian, language and Polynesian.
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The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q36979. The Library of Congress control number is sh85139267. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2015 and 2016.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wallisian language” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.