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Oceanic Language
The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages. The area occupied by speakers of these languages includes Polynesia, as well as much of Melanesia and Micronesia. Though covering a vast area, Oceanic languages are spoken by only two million people. The largest individual Oceanic languages are Eastern Fijian with over 600,000 speakers, and Samoan with an estimated 400,000 speakers. The Gilbertese (Kiribati), Tongan, Tahitian, Māori and Tolai (Gazelle Peninsula) languages each have over 100,000 speakers. The common ancestor which is reconstructed for this group of languages is called Proto-Oceanic (abbr. "POc"). Classification The Oceanic languages were first shown to be a language family by Sidney Herbert Ray in 1896 and, besides Malayo-Polynesian, they are the only established large branch of Austronesian languages. Grammatically, they have been strongly influenced by the Papuan languages of northern New Guinea, but they retain a remarka ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Oceanic Languages
''The Oceanic Languages'' is a 2002 reference work by John Lynch, Malcolm Ross, and Terry Crowley, about the Oceanic family of languages – a large subgroup within the Austronesian phylum. It is the only formal survey of the field and a standard reference work for scholars of the Oceanic languages. The book's ubiquity among Oceanic linguists has led to its being referred to simply as "the blue book". The book contains five introductory chapters which describe the history of the languages, their structure, the sociolinguistic considerations, and the relationship the languages have with each other, as well as a look at their last common ancestor, Proto-Oceanic. These five chapters are then followed by a sample of sketches for forty-three languages. The book was written in part to expand on the previous works of Robert Henry Codrington and Sidney Herbert Ray whose work was then outdated and constrained mostly to Melanesian languages. Although it contains a substantial n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Micronesian Languages
The Micronesian languages form a family of Oceanic languages. The twenty languages are known for their lack of plain labial consonant and have instead two series, palatalized and labio-velarized labials, similar to the related Kanak languages. Languages According to Jackson (1983, 1986) the languages group as follows: *Micronesian family ** Nauruan **Nuclear Micronesian family *** Kosraean ***Central Micronesian family **** Gilbertese ****Western Micronesian family ***** Marshallese ***** Chuukic-Pohnpeic family ****** Chuukic (Chuukic) ****** Pohnpeic (Ponapeic) The family appears to have originated in the east, likely on Kosrae, and spread westwards. Kosrae appears to have been settled from the south, in the region of Malaita (Solomon Islands) or in northern Vanuatu. Kevin Hughes (2020) revises Jackson's classification, especially with regards to the position of Nauruan, who states that there is no compelling argument from classifying Nauruan apart from other Micro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gazelle Peninsula
The Gazelle Peninsula is a large peninsula in northeastern East New Britain, Papua New Guinea located on the island of New Britain within the Bismarck Archipelago, situated in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The Rabaul caldera is located on the northern tip of the peninsula. Upon the Gazelle Peninsula are the Baining Mountains, of which the highest point is Mount Sinewit at . The Gazelle Peninsula houses Vulcan Crater and Mount Tavurvur, both of which conducted volcanic activity in the 20th and 21st centuries and have provided extremely fertile soils. The body of the Gazelle Peninsula is about . The southern isthmus upon which the Gazelle Peninsula is connected to the main body of East New Britain is reduced to about . The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica, (2015). Gazelle peninsula. Retrieved April 23, 2019 from https://www.britannica.com/place/Gazelle-Peninsula History The Tolai people of the peninsula probably colonised the peninsula from New Ireland not long befo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tolai Language
The Tolai language, or Kuanua, is spoken by the Tolai people of Papua New Guinea, who live on the Gazelle Peninsula in East New Britain Province. Nomenclature This language is often referred to in the literature as ''Tolai''. However, Tolai is actually the name of the cultural group. The Tolais themselves refer to their language as , which translates as 'the real language'. is apparently a word in Ramoaaina meaning 'the place over there'. Classification Tolai belongs to the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian language family. The most immediate subgroup is the Patpatar–Tolai group of languages which also includes Lungalunga (also spoken on the Gazelle Peninsula) and Patpatar (spoken on New Ireland). Characteristics Unlike many languages in Papua New Guinea, Tolai is a healthy language and not in danger of dying out to Tok Pisin, though Tolai has many loanwords from Tok Pisin; e.g. the original has been completely usurped by the Tok Pisin for 'brown', and the Tok Pi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Māori Language
Māori (; endonym: 'the Māori language', commonly shortened to ) is an Eastern Polynesian languages, Eastern Polynesian language and the language of the Māori people, the indigenous population of mainland New Zealand. The southernmost member of the Austronesian language family, it is related to Cook Islands Māori, Tuamotuan language, Tuamotuan, and Tahitian language, Tahitian. The Māori Language Act 1987 gave the language recognition as one of New Zealand's official languages. There are regional dialects of the Māori language. Prior to contact with Europeans, Māori lacked a written language or script. Written Māori now uses the Latin script, which was adopted and the spelling standardised by Northern Māori in collaboration with English Protestant clergy in the 19th century. In the second half of the 19th century, European children in rural areas spoke Māori with Māori children. It was common for prominent parents of these children, such as government officials, to us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tahitian Language
Tahitian (autonym: , , part of , , languages of French Polynesia) correspond to "languages of natives from French Polynesia", and may in principle designate any of the seven indigenous languages spoken in French Polynesia. The Tahitian language specifically is called (See Charpentier & François 2015: 106). is a Polynesian language, spoken mainly on the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It belongs to the Eastern Polynesian group. As Tahitian had no written tradition before the arrival of the Western colonists, the spoken language was first transcribed by missionaries of the London Missionary Society in the early 19th century. Context Tahitian is the most prominent of the indigenous Polynesian languages spoken in French Polynesia (). The latter also include: Charpentier & François (2015). * Marquesan, spoken by about 8,000 people in the Marquesas Islands, with two sub-divisions, North-Western () and South-Eastern () * Paumotu (), spoken by about 4,000 people in the Tua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tongan Language
Tongan (English pronunciation: ; ') is an Austronesian language of the Polynesian branch native to the island nation of Tonga. It has around 187,000 speakers. It uses the word order verb–subject–object and uses Latin script. Related languages Tongan is one of the multiple languages in the Polynesian branch of the Austronesian languages, along with Hawaiian, Māori, Samoan and Tahitian, for example. Together with Niuean, it forms the Tongic subgroup of Polynesian. Tongan is unusual among Polynesian languages in that it has a so-called ''definitive accent''. As with all Polynesian languages, Tongan has adapted the phonological system of proto-Polynesian. # Tongan has retained the original proto-Polynesian *h, but has merged it with the original *s as . (The found in modern Tongan derives from *t before high front vowels). Most Polynesian languages have lost the original proto-Polynesian glottal stop ; however, it has been retained in Tongan and a few other language ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gilbertese Language
Gilbertese (), also known as Kiribati (sometimes ''Kiribatese'' or ''Tungaru''), is an Austronesian language spoken mainly in Kiribati. It belongs to the Micronesian branch of the Oceanic languages. The word ''Kiribati'', the current name of the islands, is the local adaptation of the European name "Gilberts" to Gilbertese phonology. Early European visitors, including Commodore John Byron, whose ships happened on Nikunau in 1765, had named some of the islands the Kingsmill or Kings Mill Islands or for the Northern group ''les îles Mulgrave'' in French but in 1820 they were renamed, in French, ''les îles Gilbert'' by Admiral Adam Johann von Krusenstern, after Captain Thomas Gilbert, who, along with Captain John Marshall, had passed through some of these islands in 1788. Frequenting of the islands by Europeans, Americans and Chinese dates from whaling and oil trading from the 1820s, when no doubt Europeans learnt to speak it, as Gilbertese learnt to speak English and other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samoan Language
Samoan ( or , ) is a Polynesian languages, Polynesian language spoken by Samoans of the Samoan Islands. Administratively, the islands are split between the sovereign country of Samoa and the Unincorporated territories of the United States, United States territory of American Samoa. It is an official language, alongside English language, English, in both jurisdictions. It is widely spoken across the Pacific region, heavily so in New Zealand and in Australia and the United States. Among the Polynesian languages, Samoan is the most widely spoken by number of native speakers. Samoan is spoken by approximately 260,000 people in the archipelago and with many Samoans living in diaspora in a number of countries, the total number of speakers worldwide was estimated at 510,000 in 2015. It is the third-most widely spoken language in New Zealand, where 2.2% of the population, 101,900 people, were able to speak it as of 2018. The language is notable for the phonology, phonological differenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fijian Language
Fijian (') or iTaukei is an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, Malayo-Polynesian family spoken by some 350,000–450,000 ethnic Fijians as a native language. The 1997 Constitution of Fiji#New Constitution for 2013, 2013 Constitution established Fijian as an official languages of Fiji, language of Fiji, along with English and Fiji Hindi and there is discussion about establishing it as the "national language". Fijian is a verb–object–subject, VOS language. Standard Fijian is based on the Bau (island)#Language, Bau dialect, which is an East Fijian language. Pidgin Fijian, A pidginized form is used by many Indo-Fijians and Chinese in Fiji, Chinese on the islands, while Pidgin Hindustani is used by many rural ethnic Fijians and Chinese in areas dominated by Indo-Fijians. History History of the language The Fijian language was introduced to Fiji 3500 years ago by the islands' first settlers. For millennia, it was the only spoke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Austronesian Languages
The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken by about 328 million people (4.4% of the world population). This makes it the fifth-largest language family by number of speakers. Major Austronesian languages include Malay (around 250–270 million in Indonesia alone in its own literary standard named " Indonesian"), Javanese, Sundanese, Tagalog (standardized as Filipino), Malagasy and Cebuano. According to some estimates, the family contains 1,257 languages, which is the second most of any language family. In 1706, the Dutch scholar Adriaan Reland first observed similarities between the languages spoken in the Malay Archipelago and by peoples on islands in the Pacific Ocean. In the 19th century, researchers (e.g. Wilhelm von Humboldt, Herman van der Tuuk) started to apply the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Papuan Languages
The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands in Indonesia, Solomon Islands, and East Timor. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply a genetic relationship. New Guinea is the most linguistically diverse region in the world. Besides the Austronesian languages, there arguably are some 800 languages divided into perhaps sixty small language families, with unclear relationships to each other or to any other languages, plus many language isolates. The majority of the Papuan languages are spoken on the island of New Guinea, with a number spoken in the Bismarck Archipelago, Bougainville Island and the Solomon Islands to the east, and in Halmahera, Timor and the Alor archipelago to the west. The westernmost language, Tambora in Sumbawa, is extinct. One Papuan language, Meriam, is spoken within the national borders of Australia, in the eastern Torres Strait. Several ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
