Xaracuu

Xârâcùù, also called Canala, is a Kanak language of the Southern Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family, spoken along the south-central coast of Grande Terre in New Caledonia, around Canala, Thio and Boulouparis. The Kanak languages descend from Proto-Oceanic, carried through Island Melanesia by Lapita seafarers, who had reached New Caledonia by roughly 1000 BCE.

Within the New Caledonian group Xârâcùù forms a Mid-Southern subgroup with its neighbour Xârâgurè. A distinctive feature of its grammar is a set of numeral classifiers, attached as a suffix to the word for one and as a prefix to all the higher numerals.