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Tahitian
Reo Tahiti
Reo Mā'ohi
Spoken in: French Polynesia
Total speakers: 120,000
Language family: Austronesian
 Malayo-Polynesian(MP)
  Central-Eastern MP
   Eastern MP
    Oceanic
     Central-Eastern Oceanic
      Remote Oceanic
       Central Pacific
        East Fijian-Polynesian
         Polynesian
          Nuclear Polynesian
           Eastern Polynesian
            Central E. Polynesian
             Tahitic
              Tahitian
Language codes
ISO 639-1: ty
ISO 639-2: tah
ISO 639-3: tah
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. French Polynesia ( French: Polynésie française, Tahitian: Pōrīnetia Farāni) is a French Overseas collectivity in the 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. Nuclear Polynesian refers to those languages comprising the Samoic and the Eastern Polynesian branches of the Polynesian group of Austronesian Eastern Polynesian is a language subgroup of the Polynesian languages consisting of 13 languages all spoken on islands in the Pacific Ocean. Central Eastern Polynesian is a subgroup of the Eastern Polynesian languages consisting of 12 languages all spoken on islands in the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii The Tahitic languages are a group of Eastern Polynesian languages in the Central Eastern branch 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

Tahitian, a Tahitic language, is one of the two official languages of French Polynesia (along with French). The Tahitic languages are a group of Eastern Polynesian languages in the Central Eastern branch French Polynesia ( French: Polynésie française, Tahitian: Pōrīnetia Farāni) is a French Overseas collectivity in the French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people It is an Eastern Polynesian language closely related to Rarotongan, New Zealand Māori, and Hawaiian. Polynesia (from Greek: πολύς many, νῆσος island) is a Subregion of Oceania, comprising a large grouping of over The Cook Islands Maori language also called Māori Kūki 'Āirani or Rarotongan, is the Official language of the Cook Islands. The Hawaiian language (Hawaiian ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i) is an Austronesian language that takes its name from Hawai'i, the largest island in the tropical

Contents

Geographic spread

Tahitian is primarily spoken in the Îles de la Société (Society Islands), which includes, notably, the island of Tahiti (which is where the capital of French Polynesia, Pape’ete, is situated). The Society Islands ( French: Îles de la Société or officially Archipel de la Société) are a group of Islands in the south Pacific Tahiti is the largest Island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the Archipelago of Society Islands in the French Polynesia ( French: Polynésie française, Tahitian: Pōrīnetia Farāni) is a French Overseas collectivity in the Papeete ("water from a basket" see footnote for variant spelling (papeʔete is the Capital of French Polynesia, an overseas territory It is also spoken on the Tuha’a pae (les Australes, the five Austral Islands) and on the islands of l'Archipel des Tuamotu as a second language (the Tuamotu Archipelago). The Austral Islands ( French: Îles Australes or Archipel des Australes) are the southernmost group of islands in French Polynesia, an The Tuamotus or the Tuamotu Archipelago ( French: Îles Tuamotu officially Archipel des Tuamotu) are a chain of atolls in French Polynesia The languages of the Marquesan group (see Marquesic languages) are completely distinct. Marquesic Languages are a small but historically important subgroup of Central Eastern Polynesian languages: Marquesan languages of the Marquesas In general, the peoples of French Polynesia who speak one language, speak French, if two, then Tahitian is added, if three, then their local language or dialect is added. Furthermore, there is a diverse diaspora of Tahitian speakers throughout Oceania, including pockets as far south as New Zealand.

With respect to cognate languages, some oft-quoted figures include 76% lexical similarity with Hawaiian and 85% with Rarotongan. For example - Tahitian ra’i (sky) is lani in Hawaiian, and rangi in both Rarotongan and Māori. Another example is fare (house), represented by hale in Hawaiian, 'are in Rarotongan and whare in Māori (where 'wh' is approximately pronounced 'f').

Considering the distance between, for example, Hawaiʻi and Tahiti, this degree of similarity is of particular note. Both the Hawaiians and the Tahitians have lived in their respective archipelagos for centuries; infrequent contact between the two cultures was made using double-hulled sailing canoes. Captain Cook mentions the large canoes being used in the 1760's. Captain James Cook FRS RN ( – 14 February 1779) was an English Explorer, Navigator and To celebrate this feat of ocean navigation, the vessel Hōkūleʻa traveled from Honolulu to Papeete in 1976. Hōkūlea is a performance-accurate full-scale replica of a "waa kaulua" a double-hulled Polynesian voyaging Canoe. It is of note that the Tahitian language was even used at the Eurovision Song Contest 2006, when Monaco's Severine Fernier performed La Coco Dance which featured Tahitian chanting. The Eurovision Song Contest 2006 was the 51st Eurovision Song Contest, held at the OAKA Indoor Hall in Athens, Greece on the

Alphabet

Typologically, Tahitian word order is VSO (Verb-Subject-Object), which is typical of Polynesian languages. It also features a very small number of phonemes, as further evidence of its linguistic heritage: five vowels and eight consonants not counting the lengthened vowels, diphthongs and the glottal stop. In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with This article is about the sound in spoken language For the letter see Glottal stop (letter.

letter name pronunciation notes
IPA English
approximation
a ’ā /a/, /ɑː/ a: butter, ā: father
e ’ē /e/, /eː/ e: late, ē: same but longer
f fā /f/ friend becomes bilabial [ɸ] after o and u
h hē /h/ house becomes [ʃ] (as in English shoe) after i and before o or u
i ’ī /i/, /iː/ as in machine may become diphthong ai in some words like rahi
m mō /m/ mouse
n nū /n/ nap
o ’ō /ɔ/, /oː/ o: nought, ō: go
p pī /p/ sponge (not aspirated)
r rō /r/ - alveolar trill
t tī /t/ stand (not aspirated)
u ’ū /u/, /uː/ u: foot, ū: moo strong lip rounding
v vī /v/ vine becomes bilabial ([β]) after o and u
’ ’eta /ʔ/ uh-oh glottal stop beginning each syllable

The glottal stop or ’eta is a genuine consonant. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic The alveolar trill is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental This article is about the sound in spoken language For the letter see Glottal stop (letter. (People unfamiliar with Tahitian might mistake it for a punctuation mark. ) This is typical of Polynesian languages (compare to the Hawaiian ʻokina and others). The Polynesian languages are a Language family spoken in the region known as Polynesia. Encoding and displaying the Polynesian glottal Old conventions In plain ASCII the glottal is sometimes represented by the apostrophe character (' However, in Tahitian the glottal stops are seldom written in practice, and if they are, often as a straight apostrophe ' , instead of the curly apostrophe. The native speakers know where to pronounce them and are not taught to write them down. Alphabetical word ordering in dictionaries ignores the existence of glottals. Admittedly, the Tahitian glottal is normally weak, except in a few words like i’a (fish), and easily missed by the untrained ear of the non-native speaker.

Tahitian makes a phonemic distinction between long and short vowels; long vowels are marked with a tārava or macron. A macron, from Greek el μακρόv ( makrón) meaning "long" is a Diacritic ¯ placed over or under a Vowel which was originally For example, pāto, meaning "to pick, to pluck" and pato, "to break out", are distinguished solely by their vowel length. In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound However, macrons are seldom written.

Finally there is a toro ’a’ï, a trema put on the i, but only used in ïa when used as a reflexive pronoun. Diaeresis or trema See also Diaeresis History Historically the diaeresis mark or trema is far older than the umlaut mark It does not indicate a different pronunciation.

Although the use of ’eta and tārava is equal to the usage of such symbols in other Polynesian languages, is promoted by l'Académie Tahitienne, and is adopted by the territorial government, there are at least a dozen other ways of applying accents. Some methods are historical and no longer used, while others are heavily promoted by people who think they know better. This only adds to the confusion. See list. At this moment l'Académie Tahitienne seems to have not made a final decision yet whether the `eta should appear as a small normal curly comma (’) or a small inverted curly comma (‘). Compare 'okina. Encoding and displaying the Polynesian glottal Old conventions In plain ASCII the glottal is sometimes represented by the apostrophe character ('

Further, Tahitian syllables are entirely open, as is usual in Polynesian languages. In its morphology, Tahitian relies on the use of "helper words" (such as prepositions, articles, and particles) to encode grammatical relationships, rather than on inflection, as would be typical of European languages. Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words In Grammar, a preposition is a Part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. In Linguistics, the term particle is a word lacking a strict definition but has the function of changing the relation of the parts of the sentence to one another and is therefore It is practically an isolating language, except when it comes to the personal pronouns, which have separate forms for singular, plural and dual numbers. In morphological typology (in linguistics an isolating language (also analytic language) is any Language in which words are composed of Personal pronouns are Pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common Nouns. In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" Plural is a Grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the Referent in the real world Dual is a Grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and Plural.

Taboo names (pi’i)

In many parts of Polynesia the name of an important leader was (and sometimes still is) considered sacred and was therefore accorded appropriate respect. In order to avoid offence, all words resembling such a name were suppressed and replaced by another term of related meaning until the personage died. If, however, the leader should happen to live to a very great age this temporary substitution could become permanent. In the rest of Polynesia tū means to stand, but in Tahitian it is ti’a, because of king Tū-nui-’ē’a-i-te-atua. Pōmare I King of Tahiti (1742 - 1803 fully in old orthography Tu-nui-ea-i-te-atua-i-Tarahoi Vairaatoa Taina Pomare I (also known as Tu or Tinah or Outu likewise fetū (star) has become in Tahiti feti’a and aratū (pillar) became arati’a. Although nui (big) still occurs in some compounds, like Tahiti-nui, the normal word is rahi (which is common Polynesian for 'large'). And also ’ē’a fell in disuse, replaced by purūmu or porōmu. Nowadays ’ē’a means 'path', purūmu is 'road'. Tū also had a nickname, Pō-mare (night coughing), under which his dynasty has become best known. Rulers (title Ari'i rahi Pomare dynasty By consequence pō (night) became ru`i (nowadays only used in the Bible, pō having become the normal word again), but mare (literally cough) has irreversibly been replaced by hota. Etymology According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible is from Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin Other examples: vai (water) became pape as in the names of Papeari, Papeno’o, Pape’ete. moe (sleep) became ta’oto (the original meaning of which was 'to lie down'). Some of the old words are still used on the Leewards. The Leeward Islands (Îles Sous-le-vent Tahitian: Fenua Raro Mata’i, literally "Islands Under-the-Wind" are part of the Society Islands

See also

External links

References

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