Tahitian, a Tahitic language, is one of the two official languages of French Polynesia (along with French). It is an Eastern Polynesian language closely related to Rarotongan, New Zealand Māori, and Hawaiian. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ... Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ... The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific ( with a few members spoken on continental Asia). ... The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages and comprise at least 351 million speakers. ... The family of Central Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages is a subgroup of the Malayo-Polynesian languages. ... The family of Eastern Malayo-Polynesian 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 family of Central-Eastern Oceanic languages is a subgroup of the Oceanic languages. ... The family of Remote Oceanic languages is a subgroup of the Central-Eastern Oceanic languages. ... The family of Central Pacific languages is a subgroup of the Remote Oceanic languages. ... The family of East Fijian-Polynesian languages is a subgroup of the Central Pacific languages. ... The Polynesian languages are a group of related languages spoken in the region known as Polynesia. ... Nuclear Polynesian refers to those languages comprising the Samoic the Eastern Polynesian branches of the Polynesian group of Austronesian languages. ... The Tahitic languages are a group of East Central Polynesian languages, a group which also includes Rapan and the Marquesic languages. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2:1998 Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code Twenty-two of the languages have two three-letter codes: a code for bibliographic use (ISO 639-2/B) a code for terminological use (ISO 639-2/T). ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone = sound/voice) is the study of sounds (voice). ... Because of technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... This is a concise version of the International Phonetic Alphabet for English sounds. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The Tahitic languages are a group of East Central Polynesian languages, a group which also includes Rapan and the Marquesic languages. ... Polynesia (from Greek, poly = many and nesi = island) is a large grouping of over 1,000 islands in the central and southern Pacific Ocean. ... Rarotongan is an East Central Polynesian language spoken mainly in the southern Cook Islands. ... Māori or Te Reo Māori, commonly shortened to Te Reo (literally the language) is an official language of New Zealand. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

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). It is also spoken on the Tuha’a pae (les Australes, the five Austral Islands) and on the islands of l'Archipel des Tuamotu (the Tuamotu Archipelago), but shows more and more dialectic variations the farther one progresses away from Tahiti, to a point that one may as well speak of different languages. The languages of the Marquesan group (see Marquesic languages) are completely distinct. 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. The Society Islands (French: ÃŽles de la Société or offically Archipel de la Société) are a group of islands in the south Pacific, administratively part of French Polynesia. ... Map of French Polynesia Map of Tahiti and Moorea View of Raiatea Mountain. ... Papeete Waterfront Papeete is the capital of French Polynesia, and is located on the island of Tahiti, which is part of the Society Islands, in French Polynesia. ... Marquesic Languages are a small but historically important subgroup of East Central Polynesian Languages, comprising the Marquesan languages of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, Mangarevan, spoken in the Gambier Islands (also in French Polynesia), Hawaiian in its various forms, and Pukapukan, spoken in Puka-Puka and the Disappointment Islands...

With respect to cognate languages, some oft-quoted figures include 76% lexical similarity with Hawaiian and 85% with Rarotongan. Considering the huge distance between, say, Hawaiʻi and Tahiti, this degree of similarity is astounding. 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. To celebrate this feat of ocean navigation, the Hokule'a traveled from Honolulu to Papeete in 1976.

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').

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, diphtongs and the glottal stop. In phonetics, a diphthong (in Greek δίφθογγος) is a vowel combination usually involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ... The glottal stop or voiceless glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages. ...

The glottal stop or ’eta is a genuine consonant. (People unfamiliar with Tahitian might mistake it for a punctuation mark.) This is typical of Polynesian languages (compare to the Hawaiian ʻokina and others). 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. The Polynesian languages are a group of related languages spoken in the region known as Polynesia. ... The glottal stop is used in many Polynesian languages and known under various names as for instance: // Encoding and displaying the Polynesian glottal Old conventions In plain ASCII the glottal is sometimes represented by the apostrophe character (), ASCII value 39 in decimal and 27 in hexadecimal, which in most fonts... For the prime symbol (′) used for feet and inches, see Prime (symbol). ...

Tahitian makes a phonemic distinction between long and short vowels; long vowels are marked with a tārava or macron. For example, pāto, meaning "to pick, to pluck" and pato, "to break out", are distinguished solely by their vowel length. However, macrons are seldom written. A macron (from Gr. ... In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. ...

Finally there is a toro ’a’ï, a trema put on the i, but only used in ïa when used as a reflexive pronoun. It does not indicate a different pronunciation. In linguistics, a, diaeresis, or dieresis (AE) (from Greek (diaerein), to divide) is the modification of a syllable by distinctly pronouncing one of its vowels. ... In some languages, there is a difference between reflexive and non-reflexive pronouns. ...

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. . The ‘okina is the Hawaiian apostrophe-like character used to indicate the glottal stop consonant. ...

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. It is practically an isolating language, except when it comes to the personal pronouns, which have separate forms for singular, plural and dual numbers. Morphology is a subdiscipline of linguistics that studies word structure. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with adposition. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... In linguistics, the term particle is often employed as a useful catch-all lacking a strict definition. ... An analytic language (or isolating language) is a language in which the vast majority of morphemes are free morphemes and considered to be full-fledged words. By contrast, in a synthetic language, a word is composed of agglutinated or fused morphemes that denote its syntactic meanings. ... In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a word that usually takes the place of a noun or noun phrase that was previously mentioned (such as she, it) or that refers to something or someone (I, me, you). Pronouns are often one of the basic parts of speech of the... The word singular may refer to one of several concepts. ... Look up Plural in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Plural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. ... Dual is the grammatical number used for two referents. ...

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. 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. 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. 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. Image:Bez názvu. ... Kings of the Pomare dynasty of Tahiti: Tu-nui-ea-i-te Atua-i-Tarahoi Vairaatoa Taina [Outu] Pomare I. (Pomare I)1788-1791 Tu Tunuieaaite-a-tua Pomare II (Pomare II)1803-1821 Te-rii-ta-ria Pomare III (Pomare III) 1821-1827 Aimatta Pomare IV... The Leeward Islands (French: Îles sous le Vent) are part of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. ...

See also

• Lord Monboddo
• Swadesh list of Tahitian words

James Burnett, Lord Monboddo (1714 - May 26, 1799) was a Scottish judge, scholar and eccentric. ... Swadesh list of 207 words in English and Tahitian (to be completed). ...

External links

Tahitian language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• E Parau Tatou i te Reo Tahiti! - A complete beginners course in Tahitian with lessons, songs and wordlists.
• Tahitian - English Dictionary
• Académie Tahitienne - Fare Vāna’a
• Puna Reo - Cultural Association, English section too

Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1058x1058, 477 KB) aa Wikipedia logo, version 1058px square, no text Wikipedia logo by Nohat (concept by Paullusmagnus); compare Wikipedia File links The following pages link to this file: Arabic language Talk:Anarcho-capitalism Talk:Algorithm Talk:Anno Domini Talk:The... Wikipedia (pronounced Wik-ey-pee-de-ah) (IPA: , or , else ) is a Web-based free-content multilingual encyclopedia project. ...

References

• Y. Lemaître; Lexique du tahitien contemporain; 1973 ISBN 2-7099-0228-1
• same; second, reviewed edition, 1995 ISBN 2-7099-1247-3
• T. Henry; Ancient Tahiti – Tahiti aux temps anciens
• D.T. Tryon; Conversational Tahitian; ANU 1970