Kiribati language

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
( te taetae ni Kiribati ) Kiribati

Spoken in

Kiribati and minorities in Fiji , Tuvalu , Vanuatu , the Solomon Islands , New Zealand and Hawaii
speaker 100,000
Linguistic
classification
Official status
Official language in KiribatiKiribati Kiribati
Language codes
ISO 639 -1

-

ISO 639 -2

gil

ISO 639-3

gil

Kiribati (on Kiribati: Kiribati [ 'kiribɛs] ) often, Gilbertese called, is a mainly in the South Pacific state of Kiribati spoken language. It belongs to the family of Austronesian languages , in that to the branch of the Malayo-Polynesian languages and in turn to the Micronesian language group . In addition to English, Kiribati is the official language of the Republic of Kiribati and is spoken by around 100,000 people as their mother tongue.

distribution

Except in Kiribati , the rest of the population on Banaba and the Banaba people resettled to Rabi (Fiji) , the language is still spoken in Fiji , Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands . There are larger groups of Kiribati emigrants who speak the language in New Zealand and the US state of Hawaii . The Nuier on the island of Nui in Tuvalu speak a Micronesian dialect. Likewise, the various atolls in Kiribati differ dialectally in pronunciation and word meaning. The dialect border is between the northern and southern Gilbert Islands. The lexical similarity with the Pohnpeian language is 26%.

According to the system

The Kiribati sound system contains 13 phonemes : the vowels / a, e, i, o, u / as well as the consonants / b, k, m, n, r, t, w / and the digraph / ng /.

alphabet

A. B. E. I. K M. N NG O R. T U W.
a b e i k m n ng O r t u w

The alphabet consists of 13 ( Latin ) letters: A , B , E , I , K , M , N , O , R , T , U , W and the digraph NG .

The Latin letters <h, s, v> are also used in established foreign words . Word examples for this: Iesu Kristo , Iehova . In recent times the <w> is often replaced by a <v>.

pronunciation

The pronunciation is not always the same as in German . There are differences in the following letters:

  • A : The “ a ” is pronounced differently depending on the word and context. There are two possibilities:
    1. open A: The "open A" [a] is pronounced as in the German word "k a lt" .
      • If there is an “open A” after a “ b ” or an “ m ”, it has recently been preceded by a “ w ” (eg: “tab wa kea” (turtle), older spelling: “tab a kea " ; " m w aneaba ", other spelling:" m a neba " ).
    2. Closed A: The “closed A” [æ] is pronounced like in the English word “c a t” (cat) .
  • B : The " b " is usually pronounced as it is in German, but sometimes it also replaces the " v " in foreign-language words.
  • I : Usually the " i " is spoken as in German. However, if it comes after a “ t ” as the “final i” at the end of a word (in the case of compound words also at the end of a partial word), it is not spoken in some cases (like the “e” in French, e.g. in Pierre ). The fact that "t" is pronounced like "s" before "i" (cf. pronunciation of "t") results in the pronunciation of Kiribati as "Kiribas" and Kiritimati as "Kirismas" . In cases in which “i” is pronounced after a “t”, the more recent spelling the “i” can also appear repeatedly, e.g. B. in the name "Tiito" for [si: to] .
  • NG : The digraph "ng" [ŋ] is pronounced like in the German word "Ha ng " .
  • R : The " r " [ɾ] is "simply rolled" as in the Spanish word "pe r o" (but) . In German there is no equivalent for “simply rolled r”.
  • T : If the “ t ” comes before an “ i ”, it is pronounced like the “ s ” in the German word “Ha ss ” [s] . The word “ti” (we) is pronounced “si” . In all other cases the letter sounds like the “t” in German.

literature

  • Juliette Blevins, Sheldon P. Harrison: Trimoraic Feet in Gilbertese. In: Oceanic Linguistics , 38, 1999, 2, pp. 203-230. doi: 10.1353 / ol.1999.0012
  • Julian Grosse: Kiribati for Kiribati - word for word (=  gibberish ). 1st edition. Reise-Know-How-Verlag Peter Rump, Bielefeld 2017, ISBN 978-3-8317-4879-2 .
  • Sheldon P. Harrison: Linguistic evidence for Polynesian influence in the Gilbert Islands. In: Tom Dutton, Darrell T. Tryon (Eds.): Language contact and change in the Austronesian world . Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1994, ISBN 3-11-012786-5 , pp. 321-350 ( Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs. 77). books.google.com .
  • Cowell Reid: The Structure of Gilbertese. Rongorongo Press, Beru 1951.
  • Ernest Sabatier : Dictionnaire Gilbertin-Français. Catholic Mission Press, Tabuiroa, Gilbert Islands 1952.
    • English edition: Gilbertese-English dictionary. Te tekitinari n taetae ni Kiribati ma n Ingiriti. Translated by Sister Mary Oliva. South Pacific Commission Publications Bureau, Sydney 1971.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ethnologue Report