Tuvaluan language

Tuvaluan is a Nuclear Polynesian language of the Ellicean group spoken in Tuvalu. It is more or less distantly related to all other Polynesian languages, such as Hawaiian, Maori, Tahitian, Samoan, and Tongan, and most closely related to the languages spoken on the Polynesian Outliers in Northern and Central Melanesia. Tuvaluan has borrowed considerably from Samoan, the language of Christian missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There are about 13,051 Tuvaluan speakers worldwide.

History

Tuvaluan has been spoken for more than 2,000 years.

Grammar

The sound system of Tuvaluan consists of five vowels (i, e, a, o, u) and 10 or 11 consonants (p, t, k, m, n, ng, f, v, s, h, l), depending on the dialect. All sounds come in short and long forms, which are contrastive. There are four possible articles in Tuvaluan: definite singular te, indefinite singular se or he (depending on the dialect), definite plural zero form, and indefinite plural ne or ni (depending on the dialect). The verb can be either clause-initial or clause-medial, and the order of subject, direct object, and indirect object is relatively free. The adjective generally follows the noun, the possessor followed the possessed.

Dialects

Tuvaluan is divided into two groups of dialects, Northern Tuvaluan, comprised of dialects spoken on the islands of Nanumea, Nanumaga, and Niutao (as well as Niulakita), and Southern Tuvaluan, comprised of dialects spoken on the islands of Funafuti, Vaitupu, Nukufetau and Nukulaelae. All dialects are mutually intelligible, and differ in terms of phonology, morphology, and lexicon. The Funafuti-Vaitupu dialects (which are very close to one another) is the de-facto national language, although speakers of the Northern dialects often use their own dialect in public contexts outside of their own communities. The inhabitants of one island of Tuvalu, Nui, speak a dialect of Gilbertese, a Micronesian language only very distantly related to Tuvaluan.

Literature

The Bible was translated into Tuvaluan in 1987. Apart from this, there are very few Tuvaluan language books available. There is, however, a newspaper published in Tuvaluan, called Sikuleo o Tuvalu.

External links

• Ethnologue
• Tuvaluan Grammar
• Niko Besnier, 1995, Literacy, Emotion, and Authority: Reading and Writing on a Polynesian Atoll, Cambridge University Press
• Niko Besnier, 2000, Tuvaluan: a Polynesian language of the Central Pacific, Routledge