Yela

Yela, recorded in linguistic literature as Yele or by its own name Yélî Dnye, is the language of Rossel Island, called Yela by its people, the easternmost island of the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of New Guinea. Its classification remains unsettled: many linguists treat it as a language isolate, perhaps linked to the Anêm and Ata isolates of New Britain, while others place it near Sudest within the Oceanic Papuan Tip languages.

It is verb-final and has a large set of doubly articulated consonants; women also maintain a special register in which they avoid words connected with the sea.

The island was first sighted by Europeans on 14 July 1606, when the Spanish expedition of Luís Vaez de Torres charted it as Tierra de San Buenaventura, and received its present name from the d'Entrecasteaux expedition of 1791 to 1793.