Gilbertese Language
Gilbertese or taetae ni Kiribati, also Kiribati (sometimes Kiribatese), is an Austronesian language spoken mainly in Kiribati.
It belongs to the Micronesian branch of the Oceanic languages.
| Gilbertese | |
|---|---|
| Kiribati | |
| Taetae ni Kiribati | |
| Native to | Kiribati |
| Ethnicity | I-Kiribati |
Native speakers | 120,000 (2002–2019) |
Austronesian
| |
| Latin script (Gilbertese alphabet) | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  Kiribati |
| Regulated by | Kiribati Language Board |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | gil |
| ISO 639-3 | gil |
| Glottolog | gilb1244 |
 Map showing the pre-colonial distribution of the Micronesian languages; Gilbertese-speaking region is shaded blue and does not include the Line Islands and Rabi in Fiji | |
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 languages foreign to them. The first ever vocabulary list of Gilbertese was published by the French Revue coloniale (1847) by an auxiliary surgeon on corvette Le Rhin in 1845. His warship took on board a drift Gilbertese of Kuria, that they found near Tabiteuea. However, it was not until Hiram Bingham II took up missionary work on Abaiang in the 1860s that the language began to take on the written form known now.
Bingham was the first to translate the Bible into Gilbertese, and wrote several hymn books, a dictionary (1908, posthumous) and commentaries in the language of the Gilbert Islands. Alphonse Colomb, a French priest in Tahiti wrote in 1888, Vocabulaire arorai (îles Gilbert) précédé de notes grammaticales d'après un manuscrit du P. Latium Levêque et le travail de Hale sur la langue Tarawa / par le P. A. C.. Father Levêque named the Gilbertese Arorai (from Arorae) when Horatio Hale called them Tarawa. This work was also based on the first known description of Gilbertese in English, published in 1846, in the volume Ethnology and Philology of the U.S. Exploring Expedition, compiled by Horatio Hale.
The official name of the language is te taetae ni Kiribati, or 'the Kiribati language', but the common name is te taetae n aomata, or 'the language of the people'.
The first complete and comprehensive description of this language was published in Dictionnaire gilbertin–français of Father Ernest Sabatier (981 pp, 1952–1954), a Catholic priest. It was later partially translated into English by Sister Olivia, with the help of the South Pacific Commission.
Speakers
Over 96% of the 119,000 people living in Kiribati declare themselves I-Kiribati and speak Gilbertese. Gilbertese is also spoken by most inhabitants of Nui (Tuvalu), Rabi Island (Fiji), and some other islands where I-Kiribati have been relocated (Solomon Islands, notably Choiseul Province; and Vanuatu), after the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme or emigrated (to New Zealand and Hawaii mainly).
97% of those living in Kiribati are able to read in Gilbertese, and 80% are able to read English. It is one of the Oceanic languages. The largest individual Oceanic languages are Eastern Fijian with over 600,000 speakers, and Samoan with an estimated 400,000 speakers. The Gilbertese, Tongan, Tahitian, Māori, Western Fijian and Tolai (Gazelle Peninsula) languages each have over 100,000 speakers.
In 2020 Finlayson Park School in Auckland became the first school in New Zealand to set up a Gilbertese language unit, where Erika Taeang was employed as the teacher.
Countries by number of Gilbertese speakers
- Kiribati, 103,000 (2010 census)
- Fiji, 6,600 (2019)
- Solomon Islands, 6,800 (2012)
- New Zealand, 2,196 (2018 New Zealand census)
- Nauru, 1,500, then 500 cited 2011
- Tuvalu, 100 (2002)
- Vanuatu, 400[citation needed]
- Hawaii, 141 (2010 US census)
Linguistics and study
The Gilbertese language has two main dialects, Northern and Southern. Their main differences are in the pronunciation of some sounds. The islands of Butaritari and Makin also have their own dialect that differs from the standard Kiribati in some vocabulary and pronunciation.
Dialect listing
- Banaban (Banaba and Rabi Island, Fiji)
- Northern Kiribati (Makin, Butaritari, Marakei, Abaiang, Tarawa, Maiana, Kuria, Abemama and Aranuka)
- Butaritari/Makin (Butaritari and Makin)
- Nuian (Tuvalu)
- Southern Kiribati (Tabiteuea, Onotoa, Nonouti, Beru, Nikunau, Tamana and Arorae)
Historical sound changes
| Proto-Oceanic | *mp | *mp,ŋp | *p | *m | *m,ŋm | *k | *ŋk | *ŋ | *j | *w | *t | *s,nj | *ns,j | *j | *nt,nd | *d,R | *l | *n | *ɲ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proto-Micronesian | *p | *pʷ | *f | *m | *mʷ | *k | *x | *ŋ | *j | *w | *t | *T | *s | *S | *Z | *c | *r | *l | *n | *ɲ |
| Gilbertese | *p | *pˠ | *∅ | *m | *mˠ | *k,∅1 | *∅ | *ŋ | *∅ | *βˠ | *t,∅2 | *t | *t,s2 | *r | *r | *r | *∅ | *n | *n | *n |
1 Sometimes when reflecting Proto-Micronesian /t/.
2 Sometimes when reflecting Proto-Micronesian /k/.
Phonology
Gilbertese contrasts 13 consonants and 10 vowel sounds.
| Bilabial | Apical | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | velarized | |||
| Nasal | mː ⟨mm⟩ | nː ⟨nn⟩ | ŋː ⟨ngg⟩ | |
| m ⟨m⟩ | mˠ ⟨mw⟩ | n ⟨n⟩ | ŋ ⟨ng⟩ | |
| Stop | p ⟨b⟩ | pˠ ⟨bw⟩ | t ⟨t⟩ | k ⟨k⟩ |
| Flap | βˠ ⟨w⟩ | ɾ ⟨r⟩ | ||
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː | u uː |
| Mid | e eː | o oː |
| Open | a aː |
