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Niuean
ko e vagahau Niuē
Spoken in: Niue, Cook Islands, New Zealand, Tonga
Total speakers: 8,000
Language family: Austronesian
 Malayo-Polynesian
  Central Eastern
   Eastern
    Oceanic
     Central-Eastern
      Remote Oceanic
       Central Pacific
        East Fijian-Polynesian
         Polynesian
          Tongic
           Niuean
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: niu
ISO 639-3: niu
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Niue (niːˈʔuːeɪ/ /ˈnjuːeɪ in English is an Island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The Cook Islands ( Cook Islands Māori: Kūki 'Āirani) are a self-governing parliamentary democracy in free association with New Zealand. New Zealand is an Island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses (the North Island and the South Island The Kingdom of Tonga is an Archipelago in the south Pacific Ocean comprising 169 islands 36 of them inhabited stretching over a distance of about 800 kilometres (500 miles List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 351 million speakers The family of Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages is a branch of the Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian languages. The family of Eastern Malayo-Polynesian (EMP languages is a subgroup of the Central Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages. The Oceanic languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, containing approximately 450 languages The over 200 Central-Eastern Oceanic languages form a branch of the Oceanic Language family within the Austronesian languages. The family of Remote Oceanic languages is a subgroup of the Central-Eastern Oceanic languages. The family of Central Pacific or Fijian-Polynesian languages is a branch of the Central-Eastern Oceanic languages. The family of East Fijian-Polynesian languages is a subgroup of the Central Pacific languages. The Polynesian languages are a Language family spoken in the region known as Polynesia. The family of Tongic languages is a subgroup of the Polynesian languages. ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

The Niuean language or Niue language (Niuean: ko e vagahau Niuē) is a Polynesian language, belonging to the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian languages. The Polynesian languages are a Language family spoken in the region known as Polynesia. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 351 million speakers It is most closely related to Tongan and slightly more distantly to other Polynesian languages such as Māori, Sāmoan, and Hawaiian. Tongan ( lea fakatonga) is an Austronesian language spoken in Tonga. The Sāmoan or Samoan language is the traditional language of Samoa and American Samoa and is an official language &mdash alongside English The Hawaiian language (Hawaiian ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i) is an Austronesian language that takes its name from Hawai'i, the largest island in the tropical Together, Tongan and Niuean form the Tongic subgroup of the Polynesian languages. The family of Tongic languages is a subgroup of the Polynesian languages. Niuean also has a number of influences from Samoan and Eastern Polynesian languages.

Contents

Speakers

Niuean is spoken by 2,240 people on Niue Island (97. Niue (niːˈʔuːeɪ/ /ˈnjuːeɪ in English is an Island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. 4% of the inhabitants) as of 1991, as well as by speakers in the Cook Islands, New Zealand, and Tonga, for a total of around 8,000 speakers. Year 1991 ( MCMXCI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar. The Cook Islands ( Cook Islands Māori: Kūki 'Āirani) are a self-governing parliamentary democracy in free association with New Zealand. New Zealand is an Island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses (the North Island and the South Island The Kingdom of Tonga is an Archipelago in the south Pacific Ocean comprising 169 islands 36 of them inhabited stretching over a distance of about 800 kilometres (500 miles There are thus more speakers of Niuean outside the island itself than on the island. Most inhabitants of Niue are bilingual in English. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States

In the early 1990s 70% of the speakers of Niuean lived in New Zealand. [1]

Dialects

Niuean consists of two main dialects, the older motu dialect from the north of the island and the tafiti dialect of the south. The words mean, respectively, the people of the island and the strangers (or people from a distance).

The differences between the dialects are mainly in vocabulary or in the form of some words.

Examples of differences in vocabulary are volu (Tafiti) vs matā (Motu) for scrape, scraper and lala (Tafiti) vs kautoga (Motu) for guava (plant); examples of differences in form include hafule (T) / afule (M), aloka/haloka, nai/nei, ikiiki/likiliki, and malona/maona.

Phonology

Labial Alveolar Velar Glottal
Plosive p t k
Fricative f v (s) h
Nasal m n ŋ
Liquid l (r)

[s] is an allophone of /t/ before front vowels (both long and short /i/ and /e/; this most likely arose from the affrication of /t/ to [ts] before these vowels and subsequent change of [ts] to [s]. Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips ( bilabial articulation or with the lower lip and the upper teeth ( labiodental articulation Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the Liquid consonants, or liquids, are Approximant Consonants that are not classified as Semivowels (glides because they do not correspond phonetically While older foreign borrowings (such as tī from English tea) underwent this change along with (or perhaps by analogy with) native words, words borrowed into Niuean after this development retain the original [t] (for example, telefoni and tikulī from telephone and degree).

/r/ and /s/ are marginal phonemes, only appearing in foreign borrowings. Some speakers substitute [l] and [t], respectively.

Vowels

  front central back
  long short long short long short
high iː i uː u
mid eː e oː o
low aː a

Vowel length is distinctive in Niuean; vowels are either long or short. In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound Furthermore, two adjacent identical vowels (whether short-short, short-long, long-short, or long-long) form a rearticulated vowel; the sound is distinct from one long vowel.

Both short and long vowels can occur in any position.

All short vowels may combine with one another to form diphthongs. The possible diphthongs are:

Rearticulation

Rearticulation is the separate pronunciation of two adjacent vowels, as opposed to diphthongs which are written as two letters but pronounced as one sound. In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with These two vowels may be the same or be different ones.

Rearticulation typically occurs across morpheme boundaries, for example, when a suffix ending with a vowel comes before a root beginning with that same vowel. In Morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning. It may also occur, rarely, within monomorphemic words (words that consist of only one morpheme) as a result of the elision of a historical intervocalic consonant.

Two adjacent identical short vowels are always rearticulated, as are combinations of any two long vowels or a short and a long vowel; two adjacent different short vowels may be rearticulated or form a diphthong, and this has to be determined from the morphology or history of the word.

Syllable structure

The basic structure of a Niuean syllable is (C)V(V); all syllables end in a vowel or diphthong, and may start with at most one consonant. Consonant clusters in borrowed words are broken up with epenthetic vowels, e. g. English tractor becomes tuleketā.

Stress

The stress on a Niuean word is nearly yes always on the penult (second-to-last syllable), though multi-syllable words ending in a long vowel put primary stress on the final long vowel and secondary stress on the penult. Long vowels in other positions also attract a secondary stress.

Glottal stop

The Niuean language does not contain the glottal stop which is present in its closest relative, Tongan; this has caused some distinct words to merge. This article is about the sound in spoken language For the letter see Glottal stop (letter. Tongan ( lea fakatonga) is an Austronesian language spoken in Tonga. For example, Tongan ta'u year and tau fight have merged in Niuean as tau.

Orthography

Niuean orthography is largely phonemic; that is, one syllable stands for one sound and vice versa. The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific Writing system to write the language

Alphabet

The traditional alphabet order, given with the traditional names of the letters, is ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, fā, gā, hā, kā, lā, mō, nū, pī, tī, vī, rō, sā. Note that rō and sā as introduced letters are ordered at the end.

Sperlich (1997) uses an alphabetical order based on English for his dictionary: a, ā, e, ē, f, g, h, i, ī, k, l, m, n, o, ō, p, s, t, u, ū, v (r is left out since no words start with this letter). He recommends that consonants be named consistently with a following ā: fā, gā, hā, kā, lā, mā, nā, pā, tā, vā, rā, sā.

Vowel length can be marked with a macron; however, this is not always done. A macron, from Greek el μακρόv ( makrón) meaning "long" is a Diacritic ¯ placed over or under a Vowel which was originally

History

As with many languages, writing was brought to Niue in connection with religion, in this case with Christianity by missionaries educated in Samoa. Christianity ( Greek Χριστιανισμός from the word Xριστός ( Christ)is a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa, is a country governing the western part of the Samoan Islands Archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean This has led to some Samoan influences in morphology and grammar and also to a noticeable one in spelling: the sound /ŋ/ (Help:IPA) is written g, rather than ng as in Tongan and other Polynesian languages with this sound. (McEwen (1970) uses ng in his dictionary; however, this feature of his spelling was not popular, particularly since it conflicted with the spelling used in the Niuean Bible. )

Grammar

Typology

Niuean can be considered a VSO language; however, one analysis of Niuean uses ergative terminology, in which case it may be better to speak of Verb Agent Patient word order. Verb Subject Object ( VSO) is a term in Linguistic typology. It represents one type of languages when classifying languages according to the sequence of these The ergative case is the Grammatical case that identifies the subject of a Transitive verb in Ergative-absolutive languages In such languages

Because the unmarked case is the absolutive, Niuean transitive verb constructions often appear passive in a literal translation.

Compare

Kua kitia e ia e kalahimu
TENSE see AGENT he ARTICLE crab
"The crab was seen by him"

and

Kua kitia e kalahimu
TENSE see ARTICLE crab
"The crab was seen"

The first example sentence could also be translated into English as the nominative-accusative construction "He saw the crab".

Pronouns

Niuean pronouns are differentiated by person and number. In Linguistics and Grammar, a pronoun is a Pro-form that substitutes for a (including a noun phrase consisting of a single Noun) with or Grammatical person, in Linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event such as the speaker the Addressee, or others In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" Furthermore, first person non-singular (dual and plural) pronouns distinguish inclusive and exclusive forms, including and excluding the listener, respectively. In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" Dual is a Grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and Plural. Plural is a Grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the Referent in the real world However, they are not differentiated by gender or case; for example, ia means both he and she, him and her (inanimates ['it'] are not usually pronominalised). In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong In Linguistics, declension (or declination) is the occurrence of Inflection in Nouns Pronouns and Adjectives indicating

The Niuean pronouns are:

  singular dual plural
first person (inclusive) au taua tautolu
first person (exclusive) maua mautolu
second person koe mua mutolu
third person ia laua lautolu

Note that the endings of the dual and plural forms resemble the numbers 2 and 3, ua and tolu.

Numbers

Some numbers in Niuean are:

1 taha 10 hogofulu 100 taha e teau 1000 taha e afe
2 ua 20 uafulu 200 ua (e) teau 2000 ua (e) afe
3 tolu 30 tolugofulu 300 tolu (e) teau 3000 tolu (e) afe
4 fa* 40 fagofulu etc. etc. etc. etc.
5 lima 50 limagofulu
6 ono etc. etc.
7 fitu
8 valu
9 hiva

(*Note: Both McEwen (1970) and Sperlich (1997) give fā for four; however, Kaulima & Beaumont (1994) give fa with a short vowel. )

Tens and ones combine with ma, e. g. hogofulu ma taha, 11; tolugofulu ma ono, 36.

The numbers from one to nine (and occasionally higher numbers) can take the prefix toko- when used to count persons; for example, tokolima five (for people).

Numbers are used as verbs, for example:

Ne taha e fufua moa i loto he kato
PAST one ART egg chicken LOC inside GEN basket
"There was one egg in the basket"; literally, "Was one an egg inside the basket"

or

Tolu e tama fuata ne oatu ke takafaga
three ART child youth REL go GOAL hunt
"Three young men went out hunting"; literally, "Three (were) the young men who went out to hunt"

or

Ko e tau maaga ne fa
PRED ART PLUR village REL four
"There were (are) four villages"; literally, "The villages, which were four"

Morphology

Morphology comprises the ways in which words are built up from smaller, meaningful sub-units, or how words change their form in certain circumstances. Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words

Suppletion

Suppletion concerns closely related words (often singular and plural forms of nouns or verbs) which are based on very different forms, for example fano to go (used with a singular subject) and ō to go (used with a plural subject). This can be compared to English go and went, which are forms of the same verb yet differ in form.

Reduplication

Reduplication is frequently used in Niuean morphology to derive different nouns. Reduplication, in Linguistics, is a morphological Process by which the root or stem of a Word, or part of it is repeated Reduplication is the process of taking the entire morpheme, or sometimes only the first or last syllable or two, and repeating it.

This is used for several purposes, including:

An example of a whole-morpheme reduplication indicating a plural verb is molemole to have passed by, to be gone from mole to have passed by, to be gone; an example of a whole-morpheme reduplication indicating a frequentative verb is molomolo to keep squeezing from molo to squeeze, to compress. In Grammar, a frequentative form of a word is one which indicates repeated action

Examples of part-morpheme reduplication are gagau to bite from gau to chew (first part of the syllable reduplicated), gegele to make a crying sound from gele to start to cry (of babies) (first syllable reduplicated), and molūlū to be very soft, to be very weak from molū to be soft, to be weak (last syllable reduplicated).

Reduplication is also frequently employed together with affixes.

Affixes

Affixes (prefixes and suffixes) are frequently used for a variety of purposes; there is also one circumfix, fe- -aki (sometimes fe- -naki or fe- -taki), which is used to form reciprocal verbs ("to . An affix is a Morpheme that is attached to a stem to form a word An affix is a Morpheme that is attached to a stem to form a word In Grammar, a suffix (also postfix, ending) is an Affix which is placed at the end of a word A circumfix is an Affix, a Morpheme that is placed around another morpheme . . one another").

A common suffix is -aga, which is a nominaliser: it forms nouns from verbs.

A common prefix with faka-, with a variety of meanings, the most common being a causative one (e. g. ako to learn, fakaako to teach).

Words may also have more than one prefix or suffix, as fakamalipilipi to break (used with a plural object), from faka-, ma-, and a reduplicated lipi to break.

Compound words

Many words are simply formed by joining together other words, for example vakalele aeroplane from vaka canoe and lele fly (i. e. literally, flying canoe). Diane Massam has extensively studies a special type of compounding which she has termed pseudo noun incorporation, a type of noun incorporation. Diane Massam is a Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Toronto. Incorporation is a phenomenon by which a word usually a Verb, forms a kind of compound with for instance its Direct object or Adverbial modifier

References

  1. ^ Moseley, Christopher and R. E. Asher,ed. The Atl<My name is Kajol Kumaras of the WOrlds Languages (New York: Routelage, 1994) p. 100

See also

External links

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