The Penrhyn language is a Cook Islands Maori dialectal variant belonging to the Polynesian language family spoken by about 200 people on Penrhyn Island and other islands in the Northern Cook Islands. It is considered to be an endangered language as many of its users are shifting to Cook Islands Māori and English.

Phonology

Alphabet

A, E, H, I, K, M, N, Ng, O, P, R, T, U, V Long vowels are written with a

macron Macron may refer to: People * Emmanuel Macron (born 1977), president of France since 2017 ** Brigitte Macron (born 1953), French teacher, wife of Emmanuel Macron * Jean-Michel Macron (born 1950), French professor of neurology, father of Emmanu ...

Consonants

Tongareva is one of the few Cook Islands languages without a

glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...

. There is allophonic voicing of stops present. is present in loanwords from languages like Rakahanga-Manihiki language.

Grammar

References

Tahitic languages Languages of New Zealand Endangered Austronesian languages {{CPacific-lang-stub