Gilbertese language

Gilbertese or Kiribati (sometimes Kiribatese, a mixture of both) is a language from the Austronesian family, part of the Oceanian branch and of the Nuclear Micronesian subbranch. It is a verb object subject language.

Description of the language as Gilbertese or Kiribatese is considered an offensive relic of colonial days by some I-Kiribati (the people of Kiribati). But as Kiribati is a rendition for Gilberts, most people do not care. The official description is Kiribati, or 'the Kiribati language'.

About 105,000 people speak Gilbertese, 98,000 of whom live in Kiribati, about 97.2% of the entire population. The others are the inhabitants of Nui (Tuvalu), Rabi (Fiji), Mili (Marshall Islands) and some other islands where I-Kiribati have been relocated (Solomon Islands and Vanuatu) or emigrated (New Zealand and Hawaii mainly).

Unlike many in the Pacific region, the Kiribati language is far from extinct, and just about all speakers use it daily. Only 30% of Kiribati speakers are fully bilingual with English, meaning that the language is in no current danger of being swallowed by English.

Fishermen, sailors, farmers, and people involved in the production of copra comprise the majority of Kiribati speakers.

The Kiribati language has two main dialects: the Northern dialect and the Southern dialect. The main differences between them are in the pronunciation of some words. The islands of Butaritari and Makin also have their own dialect. It differs from the standard Kiribati in both vocabulary and pronunciation.

The Kiribati language is written in the Latin alphabet, and has been since the 1840s, when Hiram Bingham Jr, a missionary, first translated the Bible into Kiribati and required an alphabet in which to write it. One difficulty in translating the Bible was references to words such as "mountain", a geographical phenomenon unknown to the people of the islands of Kiribati at the time (only heard in the myths from Samoa). Bingham decided to use "hilly", which would be more easily understood.

Catholic missionaries would later arrive at the islands in 1888 and translate the Bible independently of Bingham, resulting in differences (Bingham wrote Jesus as "Iesu", while the Catholics wrote "Ietu") that would only be resolved in the 20th century (No 's' in the Kiribati alphabet). The best English-Kiribati Dictionary has been published by Father Ernest Sabatier in 1954: Dictionnaire Gilbertin-Français, 900p. (edited by South Pacific Commission in 1971).

Useful phrases

• Hello - Mauri
• Hello - [singular] Ko na mauri
• Hello - [plural] Kam na mauri
• How are you? - Ko uara?
• How are you? - [to several people] Kam uara?
• Thank you - Ko rabwa
• Thank you - [to several people] Kam rabwa
• Goodbye - Ti a bo (we will see)

External links

Ethnlogue report for Gilbertese Gilbertese words collection for SuperMemo