Tobian language
Tobian | ||
---|---|---|
Spoken in |
Palau ( Hatohobei , Koror , Sonsorol ) | |
speaker | 22nd | |
Linguistic classification |
Austronesian |
|
Official status | ||
Other official status in | Palau (official language in Tobi ) | |
Language codes | ||
ISO 639-3 |
tox |
Tobisch or Tobianisch (Tobianisch: ramarih Hatohobei , translates to "the language of Tobi") is the language of the island Tobi , one of the Southwest Islands of Palau , and the main island of the state Hatohobei .
Tobian is a critically endangered Micronesian language that is now spoken as a mother tongue by fewer than 150 people. It has recently been increasingly displaced by the Palauian official language, English , as Tobian has no official status.
Tobian and the dialects of Sonsorol , Merir and Pulo Anna , the other inhabited Southwest Islands, are closely related to the languages spoken in Micronesia in the outer islands of Yap and Chuuk .
Today most of the speakers of this language live in Echang, a district of Koror , the former capital of Palau. Tobian and Sonsorolese are closely related. There are small indications that they are developing into a new dialect called Echangesian .
key vocabulary
- Animal = mar
- Coconut palm = calm
- Goodbye = sabuho
- Language = ramarih
- Soldier fish = red
counting
- one = sewo
- two = huwou
- three = soruo
- four = fauwo
There are different numerals for many different objects.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ethnologue : tox
- ↑ Base Counting Words by Isauro Andrew [1] Isauro Andrew