Tahitian language

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Tahitian
Reo Tahiti Reo Māꞌohi
Native to	French Polynesia
Ethnicity	185,000 Tahitians
Native speakers	68,260, 37% of ethnic population (2007 census)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Polynesian Eastern Polynesian Tahitic Tahitian
Official status
Recognised minority language in	French Polynesia
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ty
ISO 639-2	tah
ISO 639-3	tah
Glottolog	tahi1242
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Tahitian (Tahitian: Reo Tahiti, part of Reo Māꞌohi, languages of French Polynesia)^[2] 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 (reo māꞌohi).^[2][3] The latter also include:^[4]

• Marquesan, spoken by about 8,000 people in the Marquesas Islands, with two sub-divisions, North-Western (ꞌeo ꞌenana) and South-Eastern (ꞌeo ꞌenata)
• Paꞌumotu (reo paꞌumotu), spoken by about 4,000 people in the Tuamotu Islands
• Austral, spoken by about 3,000 people in the Austral Islands
• Rapa, spoken by about 400 people on Rapa Iti
• Raꞌivavae, spoken by about 900 people in the Austral Islands
• Mangareva, spoken by about 600 people in the Gambier Islands

History[]

When Europeans first arrived in Tahiti at the end of the 18th century, there was no writing system and Tahitian was only a spoken language. Reports by some early European explorers including Quirós^[5] include attempts to trascribe notable Tahitian words heard during initial interactions with the indigenous people of Marquesa. Aboard the Endeavour, Lt. James Cook and the ship's master, Robert Molyneux, transcribed the names of 72 and 55 islands respectively as recited by the Tahitian arioi, Tupaia. Many of these were "non-geographic" or "ghost islands" of Polynesian mythology and all were transcribed using phonetic English spelling.^[6] In 1797, Protestant missionaries arrived in Tahiti on a British ship called Duff, captained by James Wilson. Among the missionaries was Henry Nott (1774–1844) who learned the Tahitian language and worked with Pōmare II, a Tahitian king, and the Welsh missionary, John Davies (1772-1855), to translate the Bible into Tahitian. A system of five vowels and nine consonants was adopted for the Tahitian Bible, which would become the key text by which many Polynesians would learn to read and write. John Davies's spelling book (1810) was the first book to be printed in the Tahitian language. He also published a grammar and a dictionary of that language.

Phonology[]

Tahitian features a very small number of phonemes: five vowels and nine consonants, not counting the lengthened vowels and diphthongs. Notably, the consonant inventory lacks any sort of dorsal consonants.

There is a five vowel inventory with vowel length:

Next follows a table with all phonemes in more detail.

The glottal stop or ꞌeta is a genuine consonant. This is typical of Polynesian languages (compare to the Hawaiian ʻokina and others). See Typography below.

Tahitian makes a phonemic distinction between long and short vowels; long vowels are marked with macron or tārava. 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 among older people because Tahitian writing was never taught at school until 1981.^[7]

Finally there is a toro ꞌaꞌï, a trema put on the i, but only used in ïa when used as a reflexive pronoun. It does not indicate a different pronunciation. Usage of this diacritic was promoted by academics but has now virtually disappeared, mostly due to the fact that there is no difference in the quality of the vowel when the trema is used and when the macron is used.

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 a very analytic language, except when it comes to the personal pronouns, which have separate forms for singular, plural and dual numbers.

Typography[]

ꞌEta letter forms
	The ʻeta (currently encoded as the ʻokina), as it appears in the Lucida Sans font.

In former practice, the glottal stop used to be seldom written, but today it is commonly spelled out, although often as a straight apostrophe (ꞌ, see below) instead of the turned curly apostrophe used in Hawaiian. Alphabetical word ordering in dictionaries used to ignore the existence of glottal stops. However, academics and scholars now publish text content with due use of glottal stops.

Although the use of ꞌeta and tārava is equal to the usage of such symbols in other Polynesian languages, it is promoted by the Académie tahitienne and adopted by the territorial government. There are at least a dozen other ways of applying accents. Some methods are historical and no longer used.^[8] At this moment, the Académie tahitienne seems to have not made a final decision yet whether the ꞌeta should appear as a normal letter apostrophe (U+02BC ʼ MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE) or a turned letter apostrophe (U+02BB ʻ MODIFIER LETTER TURNED COMMA, called ʻokina in Hawaiian).

As the ASCII apostrophe (U+0027 ' APOSTROPHE) is the character output when hitting the apostrophe key on a usual French AZERTY keyboard, it has become natural for writers to use the straight apostrophe for glottal stops, although to avoid the complications caused by substituting punctuation characters for letters in digital documents, the saltillo (U+A78C ꞌ LATIN SMALL LETTER SALTILLO and U+A78B Ꞌ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SALTILLO) may be used instead.

Today, macronized vowels and ꞌeta are also available on mobile devices, either by default or after installing an application to input vowels with macron as well as the ꞌeta.

Grammar[]

Personal pronouns[]

Like many Austronesian languages, Tahitian has separate words for inclusive and exclusive we, and distinguishes singular, dual, and plural.

Singular[]

• Au (Vau after "a", "o" or "u")[1] I, me: ꞌUa ꞌamu vau i te iꞌa I have eaten the fish; E haere au i te farehaapiꞌira ānānahi I will go to school tomorrow.
• ꞌOe you: ꞌUa ꞌamu ꞌoe i te iꞌa You have eaten the fish; ꞌUa tuꞌino ꞌoe i tō mātou pereꞌoꞌo[2] You damaged our car.
• ꞌŌna/ꞌoia he, she: ꞌUa ꞌamu ꞌōna i te iꞌa He/she ate the fish; E aha ꞌōna i haere mai ai? Why is she here/why did she come here?; ꞌAita ꞌōna i ꞌō nei He/she is not here.

Dual[]

• Tāua (inclusive) we/us two: ꞌUa ꞌamu tāua i te iꞌa We (us two) have eaten the fish; E haere tāua[3] Let's go (literally 'go us two'); ꞌO tō tāua hoa tēi tae mai[4] Our friend has arrived.
• Māua (exclusive) we/us two: ꞌUa ꞌamu māua i te iꞌa We have eaten the fish; E hoꞌi māua ꞌo Titaua i te fare[5] Titaua and I will return/go home; Nō māua tera fare That is our house.[6]
• ꞌŌrua you two: ꞌUa ꞌamu ꞌōrua i te iꞌa You two ate the fish; A haere ꞌōrua[7] You (two) go; Nā ꞌōrua teie puta This book belongs to both of you.
• Rāua they two: ꞌUa ꞌamu rāua i te iꞌa They (they two) have eaten the fish; Nō hea mai rāua? Where are they (they two) from?;[8] ꞌO rāua ꞌo Pā tei faꞌaea i te fare[9] He/she and Pa stayed home.

Plural[]

• Tātou (inclusive) we: ꞌO vai tā tātou e tīaꞌi nei? Who are we waiting for/expecting?,[10] E ꞌore tā tātou māꞌa e toe There won't be any of our food more left.
• Mātou (exclusive) we, they and I: ꞌO mātou ꞌo Herenui tei haere mai[11][12] We came with Herenui; ꞌUa ꞌite mai ꞌoe ia mātou You saw us/you have seen us.
• ꞌOutou you (plural): ꞌA haere atu ꞌoutou, e peꞌe atu vau You (all) go, I will follow;[13] ꞌO ꞌoutou ꞌo vai mā tei haere i te tautai?[14] Who went fishing with you (all)?
• Rātou they/them: ꞌUa mārō rātou ia Teina[15][16] They have quarrelled with Teina; Nō rātou te pupu pūai aꞌe[17] They have the strongest team.

Word order[]

Typologically, Tahitian word order is VSO (verb–subject–object), which is typical of Polynesian languages. Some examples of word order from ^[9] are:

• tē tāmāꞌa nei au – "[present continuous] eat [present continuous] I", "I am eating"
• ꞌua tāpū vau ꞌi te vahie – "[perfective aspect] chop I [object marker] the wood", "I chopped the wood"
• ꞌua hohoni hia ꞌoia e te ꞌūrī – "[perfective aspect] bite [passive voice] he by the dog", "He was bitten by the dog"

[*e mea marō te haꞌari – "Are thing dry the coconut", "The coconuts are dry"] [*e taꞌata pūai ꞌoia – "Is man strong he", "He is a strong man"]

Articles[]

Definite article[]

The article te is the definite article and means the. In conversation it is also used as an indefinite article for a or an.^[9]:p.9

For example;

• te fare – the house; te tāne – the man

The plural of the definite article te is te mau.

For example;

• te mau fare – the houses; te mau tāne – the men

Also, te may also be used to indicate a plural;

For example;

• te taꞌata – can mean the person or the people

Indefinite article[]

E[]

The indefinite article is e

For example;

• e taꞌata - a person [18]

The article e also introduces an indefinite common noun.

For example;

• e taꞌata – a person
• e vahine – a woman
• e mau vahine – (many) women

In contrast, te hōꞌē means a certain. [19]

For example;

• te hōꞌē fare – a certain house

ꞌO[]

The article ꞌo is used with proper nouns and pronouns and implies it is.

For example;

• ꞌO Tahiti – (It is) Tahiti
• ꞌO rātou – (It is) they

Aspect and modality markers[]

Verbal aspect and modality are important parts of Tahitian grammar, and are indicated with markers preceding and/or following the invariant verb. Important examples are:

• e: expresses an unfinished action or state.

E hīmene Mere i teie pō: [20] ""Will sing Mary tonight", "Mary will sing tonight"

• ꞌua: expresses a finished action, a state different from a preceding state. [21] [ꞌua does not indicate surprise]

ꞌUa riri au : "Angry I", "I am angry" [22]

• tē ... nei: indicates progressive aspect.

Tē tanu nei au i te taro: "planting I [dir. obj. marker] the taro", "I am planting the taro"

[23]

E tāere ana ꞌōna "Always is late he", "He is always late"

• i ... nei indicates a finished action or a past state.

ꞌUa fānau hia ꞌoia i Tahiti nei "Was born she in Tahiti", "She was born in Tahiti"

• i ... iho nei indicates an action finished in the immediate past.

I tae mai iho nei ꞌōna "He just came"

• ꞌia indicates a wish, desire, supposition, or condition.

ꞌIa vave mai! "Hurry up!"

• ꞌa indicates a command or obligation.

ꞌA piꞌo ꞌoe i raro! "Bend down!"

• ꞌeiaha indicates negative imperative.

ꞌEiaha e parau! "Do not speak"

• ꞌĀhiri, ꞌahani indicates a condition or hypothetical supposition.

ꞌĀhiri te pahī i taꞌahuri, ꞌua pohe pau roa īa tātou "If the boat had capsized, we would all be dead"

• ꞌaita expresses negation.

ꞌAita vau e hoꞌi mai "I will not return"

Vocabulary[]

Common phrases and words[]

Taboo names – piꞌi[]

In many parts of Polynesia the name of an important leader was (and sometimes still is) considered sacred (tapu) and was therefore accorded appropriate respect (mana). In order to avoid offense, 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 became tiꞌa, because the word was included in the name of king Tū-nui-ꞌēꞌa-i-te-atua. Likewise fetū (star) has become in Tahiti fetiꞌa and aratū (pillar) became aratiꞌa. Although nui (big) still occurs in some compounds, like Tahiti-nui, the usual word is rahi (which is a common word in Polynesian languages for 'large'). The term ꞌēꞌa fell in disuse, replaced by purūmu or porōmu. Currently ꞌēꞌa means 'path' while purūmu means 'road'.

Tū also had a nickname, Pō-mare (literally means 'night coughing'), under which his dynasty has become best known. By consequence pō (night) became ruꞌi (currently only used in the Bible, pō having become the word commonly in use once again), but mare (literally cough) has irreversibly been replaced by hota.

Other examples include;

• vai (water) became pape as in the names of Papeari, Papenoꞌo, Papeꞌete
• moe (sleep) became taꞌoto (the original meaning of which was 'to lie down').

Some of the old words are still used on the Leewards.

See also[]

• Lord Monboddo
• Swadesh list of Tahitian words

Notes[]

References[]

• Charpentier, Jean-Michel; François, Alexandre (2015). Atlas Linguistique de Polynésie Française — Linguistic Atlas of French Polynesia (in French and English). Mouton de Gruyter & Université de la Polynésie Française. ISBN 978-3-11-026035-9.
• Y. Lemaître, Lexique du tahitien contemporain, 1973. ISBN 2-7099-0228-1
• same; 2nd, reviewed edition, 1995. ISBN 2-7099-1247-3
• T. Henry, Ancient Tahiti – Tahiti aux temps anciens
• Darrell Tryon, Conversational Tahitian; ANU 1970

External links[]

• 1851 Tahitian–English dictionary
• 1898 Tahitian-French dictionary
• Tahitian Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)
• Académie Tahitienne – Fare Vānaꞌa
• Puna Reo – Cultural Association, English section too
• Index cards of plant and animal names from the 1960s archived with Kaipuleohone

Tahitian edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia