Chuukese , also rendered Trukese , is a Chuukic language of the Austronesian language family spoken primarily on the islands of Chuuk in the

Caroline Islands The Caroline Islands (or the Carolines) are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically, they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the ce ...

Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of about 2,000 small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: the Philippines to the west, Polynesia to the east, ...

. There are communities of speakers on

Pohnpei Pohnpei "upon (''pohn'') a stone altar (''pei'')" (formerly known as Ponape or Ascension, Proto-Chuukic-Pohnpeic: ''*Fawo ni pei)'' is an island of the Senyavin Islands which are part of the larger Caroline Islands group. It belongs to Pohnp ...

Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...

, and the Hawaiian Islands as well. Estimates show that there are about 45,900 speakers in Micronesia.

Classification

Chuukese is a Austronesian language of the Micronesian subbranch. It is one of the dialects making up the Chuukic subgroup of Micronesian languages, together with its close relatives like

Woleaian Woleaian is the main language of the island of Woleai and surrounding smaller islands in the state of Yap of the Federated States of Micronesia. Woleaian is a Chuukic language. Within that family, its closest relative is Satawalese, with whic ...

, Carolinian.

Phonology

Chuukese has the unusual feature of permitting word-initial

geminate In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...

(double) consonants. The common ancestor of Western Micronesian languages is believed to have had this feature, but most of its modern descendants have lost it. and are a difference in orthography, and both older ''tr'' and current ''ch'' transcribe the sound . Consonants are doubled in Chuuk when they have a voiceless sound. Some consonant combinations are frequently denasalized between vowels when doubled. can be heard as either central or back .

Orthography

Chuukese is one of the few languages allowing for word initial double consonants:

References

External links

Chuukese Wordlist at the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary DatabaseArchive
* Howard, Jocelyne.
CHUUKESE TRANSLATIONS
" ()

University of Hawaii A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

. * Kaipuleohone have archive materials for Chuukese includin
written materialsaudio recordings
and additional audio recordings from Brian Diettrich's MA thesis.
Portland State University Multicultural Topics in Communications Sciences & Disorders , Chuukese
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chuukese Language Languages of the Federated States of Micronesia Chuukic languages