Nuguria (Nukuria) was 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 by approximately 550 people on

Nuguria Nuguria or the Nuguria Islands, also known as the Abgarris or Fead Islands,Richard Parkinson et al. ''Thirty years in the South Seas'', 1999 are a Polynesian outlier and islands of Papua New Guinea. They are located nearly 150 km from the nor ...

in the eastern islands of

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 ...

. The language was taught in primary schools in

and was used for daily communications between adults and children.

is one of the eighteen small islands to the east of

, which are known as the

Polynesian Outliers Polynesian is the adjectival form of Polynesia. It may refer to: * Polynesians, an ethnic group * Polynesian culture, the culture of the indigenous peoples of Polynesia * Polynesian mythology, the oral traditions of the people of Polynesia * Poly ...

. The Nukuria language has been concluded to be closely related to other nearby languages such as Nukumanu,

Takuu Takuu, formerly known as Tauu and also known as Takuu Mortlock or Marqueen Islands, is a small, isolated atoll off the east coast of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. Geography Takuu lies about 250 km to the northeast of Kieta, capital of ...

Nukuoro Nukuoro is an atoll in the Federated States of Micronesia. It is a municipality of the state of Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia. It is the secondmost southern atoll of the country, after Kapingamarangi. They both are Polynesian outliers ...

, and Luangiua. Research on the Nuguria Atoll and the language itself is scarce; past research demonstrated that this language was at risk of potential endangerment. The language was only then classified as at risk of endangerment because it was still used between generations and was passed on to the children. However, recent research indicates that Nukuria is now most likely an extinct language.

Classification

Nukuria is a Polynesian language and a part of the Austronesian language family, which includes Tagalog, Marshallese, and Tongan. The Austronesian language family is a language family that extends throughout the Pacific Islands and parts of Asia. It is one of three major language families in the Pacific. The Austronesian language family ( not to be confused with

Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are th ...

languages) is also divided into ten subgroups, one of which is

Malayo-Polynesian The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeas ...

. Nukuria is a part of the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup because of its southeast location to Asia. It is further grouped into Ellicean, one of the eleven Nuclear Polynesian branches. The Nuclear Polynesian language is divided into two major branches: Samoic and Eastern Polynesian. The Nuclear Polynesian languages are classified as languages in this region that are not a Tongic language (Tongan and Niuean).

Geographic distribution

Nukuria is a language in opposition to a dialect and it is spoken in the Nuguria Atoll. It is alternatively known as the Fead Islands located in the

Bougainville Province Bougainville ( ; ; Tok Pisin: ''Bogenvil''), officially the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (Tok Pisin: ''Otonomos Region bilong Bogenvil''), is an autonomous region in Papua New Guinea. The largest island is Bougainville Island, while the r ...

. Other nearby island groups include: Nukumanu,

, Buka, Bougainville all of which are endangered languages. Nuguria Island lies on the outer edge of

Melanesia Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from Indonesia's New Guinea in the west to Fiji in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Va ...

, making it a

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 ...

. Polynesian Outliers are the islands that do not exist within the major boundaries of

Polynesia Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...

, but instead they are within

and/or

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, and ...

. The Nuguria Atoll is located in Melanesia along with the Solomon Islands.

Grammar

There is a distinct scarceness of research on the grammar and alphabet of the Nukuria Language, but it is understood that as with many Austronesian languages, Nukuria has a subject-verb-object sentence structure. However, all of the Austronesian Languages within the Bismarck Archipelago have a subject-verb-object sentence structure. This sentence structure (

typology Typology is the study of types or the systematic classification of the types of something according to their common characteristics. Typology is the act of finding, counting and classification facts with the help of eyes, other senses and logic. Ty ...

) is also used in the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

, which is a part of the

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

language family.

Phonology

The Nukuria language's alphabet contains five

vowels 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 (len ...

: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/, and fifteen

consonants 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 wit ...

: /p/,/b/,/m/,/f/,/v/,/t/,/s/,/n/,/l/,/r/,/k/,/g/,/ŋ/,/w/,/h/. There are five stops, four fricatives, three nasals, two approximants, and one trill. Of those consonants three are bilabial, two are labiodental, five are alveolar, four are velar, and one is glottal. To provide a comparison, the Nukuria Language has seven more consonants than the Hawaiian language ('Ōlelo Hawaiʻi'): /m/,/n/,/p/,/t ~ k/,/ ʔ/, /h/,/ w~v/,and /l/. It also has five consonants more than

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

, (te reo): /p/,/t/,/k/,/wh/,/h/,/m/,/n/,/ŋ/,/r/,and /w/. Hawaiian and Māori are used for comparison because they are two of the more commonly known Polynesian Languages. In addition, the English language has twenty-four consonants and at least fourteen vowels. The ŋ is a voiced velar nasal and is present in the suffix "ing" such as in the English word "ending". It is the "ng" sound in the words: "laughing", "crying", "hiking", "jumping" and so on.

References

{{Languages of Papua New Guinea Ellicean languages