Rennell-Bellona, or Rennellese, is a
Polynesian language
The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family.
There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austro ...
spoken in the
Rennell and Bellona Province
Rennell and Bellona is one of the nine provinces of Solomon Islands, comprising two inhabited atolls, Rennell and Bellona, or and respectively in Rennellese (a Polynesian language), as well as the uninhabited Indispensable Reef. Rennell and B ...
of the
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capit ...
. A dictionary of the language has been published.
Introduction
History
Rennellese, also known as Rennell or Bellonese, is a
Polynesian language
The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family.
There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austro ...
(considered one of the
Polynesian outlier
Polynesian outliers are a number of culturally Polynesian societies that geographically lie outside the main region of Polynesian influence, known as the Polynesian Triangle; instead, Polynesian outliers are scattered in the two other Pacific s ...
s, since it lies outside of the
Polynesian Triangle) that is spoken in the Central Solomon Islands; mainly
Rennell and
Bellona Bellona may refer to:
Places
*Bellona, Campania, a ''comune'' in the Province of Caserta, Italy
*Bellona Reef, a reef in New Caledonia
*Bellona Island, an island in Rennell and Bellona Province, Solomon Islands
Ships
* HMS ''Bellona'' (1760), a 74 ...
island. For a great deal of time the Solomon Islands were occupied by the British, and pidgin English had become the main language spoken in the Rennell and Bellona Islands, until World War II. At that time the Rennell and Bellona Islands were a battlefield during the Battle of Midway, between the Japanese and Americans; just like Hawaii. During the battle the Japanese occupied most of the area using it as a base. After World War II had ended, both Rennell and Bellona were still being held by allied forces, until finally gaining independence in 1978 (Levinson, 279-280). Both islands have been working to develop their own government, and Rennellese has been recognized as the official language.
Population
The Solomon Islands have a population of around 940,000 (in 2016), including 658,000 in the independent state of the Solomon Islands; and only a little over 4000 of these people speak Rennellese. Natives who currently live there refer to themselves as for the Bellona Islands and for the Rennell Islands, and among the younger generation is used to reference both. Ethnic groups in these islands are very widespread and distinct.
[Ember, 2002] The people of the Rennell and Bellona Islands live in small village communities, with each group having its own culture, and religious practices (Levinson, 284-285). As for government issues, the Solomon Islands as a whole is divided, with the islands to the northwest (primarily
Bougainville and
Buka) belonging to
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
, while the rest of the Solomons are their own independent government. The Rennell and Bellona Islands alone have their own provincial government known as REN-BEL, which recognizes Rennellese/Bellonese as its own language.
Phonology
Consonants
The
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
s of Rennellese consist of . The letters are regular stops, are the fricatives, are the nasals, is the only lateral, and finally as a pre-nasal (Elbert, 1988).
Vowels
The 5
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s in the system are . Rennellese possess which is a glottal stop used to lengthen vowel sounds. The can be written before or after the vowel it is lengthening, similar to an English apostrophe. Vowel length is also distributed (Elbert 1988).
Syllable Structure
The typical
syllable structure
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological " ...
in Rennellese is . Rennellese favors vowels when making syllables, and not many consonant clusters (Elbert 1988).
Grammar
Basic word order
The traditional word order for Rennellese is VSO, but more commonly among younger generations, SVO word order is used. Researchers speculate that this is due to outside influences from missionaries and World War II (Elbert, 1981). The use of either word order is usually dependent on the person speaking, or whom that person may be speaking with. Both statements and questions may have different ways of being expressed solely based on who the speaker is (Monberg 2011).
Rennellese's morphology is
polysynthetic
In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able t ...
, meaning it has a near-infinite number of morphemes that can be put into a word. Not only can some words have many morphemes, but the range between the amounts is high as well.
Reduplication
Many words in Rennellese use either whole or partial reduplication. Reduplication serves three main purposes in Rennellese:
pluralization, making a word more specific, or changing the whole word.
*, 'vine'; , 'vines'
Vocabulary
Indigenous words
*'I'
*'book'
*'chief'
*'dark'
*'eat'
*'fat'
*'garbage'
*'black people'
Loan words
Due to Rennellese's long contact with the English language, there are a few
loan words from English still used today.
Endangerment
Materials
There are many valuable resources that have been created to help maintain the language including a dictionary, and multiple books primarily written by Samuel H. Elbert. Elbert, along with several other researchers, dedicated an entire website to the people of Rennell and Bellona, called Bellona.dk. Rennellese is also the official language of
Rennell and Bellona Province
Rennell and Bellona is one of the nine provinces of Solomon Islands, comprising two inhabited atolls, Rennell and Bellona, or and respectively in Rennellese (a Polynesian language), as well as the uninhabited Indispensable Reef. Rennell and B ...
. With an official status in their country, the Rennellese have begun opening schools and other domains for the language to be used. The only problem is that some of these materials are from the 1960sā1990s, and are old and hard to come by.
Vitality
Rennellese is classified as a developing language. The number of speakers is only about 4,000 but there is use and intergenerational transmission of the language, allowing it to grow. Rennellese is used as a
first language
A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...
by the majority of the people of Rennell and Bellona. It serves many purposes, being used in education, business, and socializing (Ember 2002). In the long term, Rennellese may be able to see further growth if more technological material is made to both preserve and spread the language.
References
Further reading
*Levinson D. (1998). Ethnic Groups Worldwide: A Ready Reference Handbook: Greenwood Publishing Press.
*Jonsson N. (1999). Rennellese Language fact sheet. Retrieved from http://www2.ling.su.se/pollinet/facts/ren.html.
*Elbert S. H. (1962). Phonemic Expansion in Rennellese. The Polynesian Society.
*Ember C. R., Skoggard J. (2002). Bellona and Rennel Islanders. Encyclopedia of World Cultures Supplement. (pp. 47ā50). Macmillan, N.Y. Encyclopedia of World Cultures Supplement.
*Monberg T., Kuschel R., Elbert S. H., Christiansen S., Rossen J. M., (2011, June 1). Bellona and Rennell. Retrieved 2014, February 13 from http://www.bellona.dk
*Elbert S. H. (1981). Dictionary of The Language of Rennell and Bellona. Denmark: The National Museum of Denmark.
*Moseley, Christopher and R. E. Asher, ed. ''The Atlas of the Languages of the World'' (New York: Routledge, 1994) p. 100
External links
*
Rennell-Bellona lexical database with English glosses archived with
Kaipuleohone Kaipuleohone is a digital ethnographic archive that houses audio and visual files, photographs, as well as hundreds of textual material such as notes, dictionaries, and transcriptions relating to small and endangered languages. The archive is stored ...
* Scans of
notebooks with data on Rennellese language
* Materials on Rennell-Bellona are included in the open access
Arthur Capell
Arthur Capell (28 March 1902 ā 10 August 1986) was an Australian linguist, who made major contributions to the study of Australian languages, Austronesian languages and Papuan languages.
Early life
Capell was born in Newtown, New South Wales ...
collections
AC1an
AC2 held by
Paradisec
The Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC) is a cross-institutional project that supports work on endangered languages and cultures of the Pacific and the region around Australia. They digitise reel- ...
.
{{Austronesian languages
Futunic languages
Languages of the Solomon Islands
Rennell and Bellona Islands