Paicî language
Paicî is the most commonly spoken of the main island's two dozen languages of New Caledonia. It is spoken in a band across the center of the island, in the communes of Poindimié, Ponérihouen, Koné and Poya.
Phonology
Paicî has a rather simple inventory of consonants, in comparison to other languages of New Caledonia, however it contains an unprecedented number of nasal vowels. Paicî syllables are restricted to V.Consonants
The palatal stops could be considered affricates because they occur with a heavily fricated release. The lateral and tap do not occur word-initially, except in a few loanwords and the prefix they.Because nasal stops are always followed by nasal vowels, but prenasalized stops are always followed by oral vowels, it might be argued that nasal and prenasalized stops are allophonic, which would reduce the Paicî consonant inventory to 13.