Tokelau has two official languages:

Tokelauan Tokelauan is a Polynesian language spoken in Tokelau and on Swains Island (or Olohega) in American Samoa. It is closely related to Tuvaluan and is related to Samoan and other Polynesian languages. Tokelauan has a co-official status with Engli ...

and

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

. Over 90% of the population speaks Tokelauan, and just under 60% speak English. Also, 45.8% of the population speak Samoan, and small percentages of the population speak Tuvaluan and

Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...

Change over time

Since 2006, there has been growth in the proportion of the Tokelau population who can speak languages other than the country's native tongue. In contrast, the proportion of the total population able to speak Tokelauan has dropped, from 96.1% (in 2006) to 94.1% (in 2011). The biggest difference since 2006 in languages spoken is the proportion of the population able to carry out a conversation in Tuvaluan, up from 7.2% (in 2006) to 11.7% (in 2011).

Multilingualism

In Tokelau, approximately two-thirds (67.6%) of the population were able to speak two or more languages. Also, a large proportion of the population (40.7%) could converse in three or more languages. The most-common number of languages spoken on

Atafu Atafu, formerly known as the Duke of York Group, is a group of 52 coral islets within Tokelau in the south Pacific Ocean, north of Samoa. With a land area of , it is the smallest of the three islands that constitute Tokelau. It is an atoll and su ...

and

Fakaofo Fakaofo, formerly known as Bowditch Island, is a South Pacific Ocean atoll located in the Tokelau Group. The actual land area is only about 3 km2 (1.1 sq mi), consisting of islets on a coral reef surrounding a central lagoon of some 45 k ...

atolls was three languages. Just over one-third (34.6%) of Atafu residents spoke three languages, compared with 33.3% on Fakaofo and 24.6% on

Nukunonu Nukunonu is the largest atoll within Tokelau, a dependency of New Zealand, in the south Pacific Ocean. It comprises 30 islets surrounding a central lagoon, with about of land area and a lagoon surface area of . Motuhaga is the only islet that ...

. The most-common number of languages spoken on Nukunonu was one language. Almost half (43.9%) of Nukunonu residents spoke only one language. People in the younger age groups were more likely to speak only one or two languages. Over half (57.2%) of 0- to 9-year-olds spoke one language; 45.3% of 10- to 19-year-olds spoke two languages. We can note that 4.3% of the Tokelau population had no language (i.e. they were too young to talk) – 87.8% of these people were aged 0 to 9 years. In contrast, the majority of 30- to 59-year-olds (62.7%) spoke three or more languages.

Tokelauan language endangerment

There are fewer than 5000 speakers of the Tokelauan language making it an endangered language. The struggle to teach a language that is spoken by only handful of people is great, especially when widely known language such as

, serve as a much greater benefit in their society.Glenn, Akiemi (2012). ''Wayfinding in Pacific Linguascapes: Negotiating Tokelau Linguistic Identities in Hawai'i''. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii at Manoa. The

Heritage language A heritage language is a minority language (either immigrant or indigenous) learned by its speakers at home as children, and difficult to be fully developed because of insufficient input from the social environment. The speakers grow up with a ...

of the community starts to diminish as parents of the native language stray away from teaching their child(ren) Tokelauan, in hopes that they will succeed in learning the more dominant language of the villages. The older generations of people living in the Tokelau Islands speak both Tokelauan and Samoan, but the younger generation, due to the newer schooling system, are apt to speaking English rather than Samoan."Culture of Tokelau - history, people, clothing, traditions, women, beliefs, food, family, social"
''www.everyculture.com'' (in eng). Retrieved 2017-02-28. A census in 2001 revealed that in New Zealand, only 44 percent of the people with a Tokelauan background could hold a conversation in the language, compared to 53 percent in 1996. Comparably, a meager 29 percent of New Zealand-born Tokelauans reported being able to speak the language, compared to the 71 percent born in the three atolls.

References

* This article contains content derived from th
2011 Tokelau Census
produced by

Statistics New Zealand Statistics New Zealand ( mi, Tatauranga Aotearoa), branded as Stats NZ, is the public service department of New Zealand charged with the collection of statistics related to the economy, population and society of New Zealand. To this end, Stats ...

, which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand License. See

(2012)
Profile of Tokelau Ata o Tokelau: 2011 Census of Population and Dwellings / Tuhiga Igoa a Tokelau 2011 mo te Faitau Aofaki o Tagata ma na Fale.
''. Wellington: Statistics New Zealand for the full citation. {{Oceania topic, Languages of Tokelauan culture