The Iau language is spoken by approximately 1000 people who live in the district called Fawi, located in Papua, Indonesia in the region called Kabupaten Mulia.
The Iau alphabet uses Roman letters. The consonants are: b, d, f, k, s dan t. In Iau b, d, dan f have several variant pronunciations.
B is pronounced like b or m;
D is pronounced like d, l, r, or n;
F is pronounced like h, f or p.
The Iau vowels are: a, i, y, e, u, v, dan o.
The letters ‘y’ and ‘v’ are used to represent two extra vowels in Iau. ‘Y’ represents a sound somewhere between i and e. And ‘v’ represents a sound somewhere between u and o.
Iau is a tone language. A different tone on a word changes the meaning of that word. There are 8 different tones in Iau. There are two level tones, three falling tones two rising tones and a fall-rise. The tones are symbolized by the numbers 2-8.
9 level and high
8 level and low,
7 high and then rises,
6 starts very low and then rises
5 descends from very high to very low,
4 descends from high to low
3 starts low and goes lower
2 starts high goes down to very low
and then rises again..
