Nukuria language

Last updated
Nuguria
Native to Papua New Guinea
Region Nuguria
Native speakers
550 (2003) [1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 nur
Glottolog nuku1259
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Nuguria (Nukuria) is a Polynesian language, spoken by approximately 550 people on Nuguria in the eastern islands of Papua New Guinea. [2] The language was taught in primary schools in Nuguria and was used for daily communications between adults and children. [3] Nuguria is one of the eighteen small islands to the east of Papua New Guinea, which are known as the Polynesian Outliers. [4] The Nukuria language has been concluded to be closely related to other nearby languages such as Nukumanu, Takuu, Nukuoro, and Luangiua. [4] [5] Research on the Nuguria Atoll and the language itself is scarce; past research demonstrated that this language was at risk of potential endangerment. The language was only then classified as at risk of endangerment because it was still used between generations and was passed on to the children.[ citation needed ] However, recent research indicates that Nukuria is now most likely an extinct language. [6]

Contents

Classification

Nukuria is a Polynesian language and a part of the Austronesian language family, which includes Tagalog, Marshallese, and Tongan. The Austronesian language family is a language family that extends throughout the Pacific Islands and parts of Asia. [7] It is one of three major language families in the Pacific. [6] The Austronesian language family ( not to be confused with Austroasiatic languages) is also divided into ten subgroups, one of which is Malayo-Polynesian. [6] Nukuria is a part of the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup because of its southeast location to Asia. [8] It is further grouped into Ellicean, one of the eleven Nuclear Polynesian branches. [6] The Nuclear Polynesian language is divided into two major branches: Samoic and Eastern Polynesian. [9] The Nuclear Polynesian languages are classified as languages in this region that are not a Tongic language (Tongan and Niuean). [6]

Geographic distribution

Nukuria is a language in opposition to a dialect and it is spoken in the Nuguria Atoll. [10] It is alternatively known as the Fead Islands located in the Bougainville Province. [11] Other nearby island groups include: Nukumanu, Takuu, Buka, Bougainville all of which are endangered languages. [12] Nuguria Island lies on the outer edge of Melanesia, making it a Polynesian Outlier. Polynesian Outliers are the islands that do not exist within the major boundaries of Polynesia, but instead they are within Melanesia and/or Micronesia.[ citation needed ] The Nuguria Atoll is located in Melanesia along with the Solomon Islands. [10]

Grammar

There is a distinct scarceness of research on the grammar and alphabet of the Nukuria Language, but it is understood that as with many Austronesian languages, Nukuria has a subject-verb-object sentence structure. However, all of the Austronesian Languages within the Bismarck Archipelago have a subject-verb-object sentence structure. [6] This sentence structure (typology) is also used in the English language, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. [6]

Phonology

The Nukuria language's alphabet contains five vowels: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/, and fifteen consonants: /p/,/b/,/m/,/f/,/v/,/t/,/s/,/n/,/l/,/r/,/k/,/g/,/ŋ/,/w/,/h/. [13] There are five stops, four fricatives, three nasals, two approximants, and one trill. Of those consonants three are bilabial, two are labiodental, five are alveolar, four are velar, and one is glottal.

To provide a comparison, the Nukuria Language has seven more consonants than the Hawaiian language ('Ōlelo Hawaiʻi'): /m/,/n/,/p/,/t ~ k/,/ ʔ/, /h/,/ w~v/,and /l/.[ citation needed ] It also has five consonants more than Māori, (te reo): /p/,/t/,/k/,/wh/,/h/,/m/,/n/,/ŋ/,/r/,and /w/.[ citation needed ] Hawaiian and Māori are used for comparison because they are two of the more commonly known Polynesian Languages. In addition, the English language has twenty-four consonants and at least fourteen vowels.

The ŋ is a voiced velar nasal and is present in the suffix "ing" such as in the English word "ending". It is the "ng" sound in the words: "laughing", "crying", "hiking", "jumping" and so on.

Nukuria consonants
Labial Alveolar Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Stop voiceless p t k
voiced b g
Fricative voiceless f s h
voiced v
Approximant l w
Trill r

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malayo-Polynesian languages</span> Major subgroup of the Austronesian language family

The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia in the areas near the Malay Peninsula, with Cambodia, Vietnam and the Chinese island Hainan as the northwest geographic outlier. Malagasy, spoken in the island of Madagascar off the eastern coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean, is the furthest western outlier.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polynesian languages</span> Language family

The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Autonomous Region of Bougainville</span> Autonomous region of Papua New Guinea

Bougainville, officially the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, is an autonomous region in Papua New Guinea. The largest island is Bougainville Island, while the region also includes Buka Island and a number of outlying islands and atolls. The current capital is Buka, situated on Buka Island.

Polynesians are an ethnolinguistic group of closely related ethnic groups who are native to Polynesia, an expansive region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They trace their early prehistoric origins to Island Southeast Asia and form part of the larger Austronesian ethnolinguistic group with an Urheimat in Taiwan. They speak the Polynesian languages, a branch of the Oceanic subfamily of the Austronesian language family. The Indigenous Māori people constitute the largest Polynesian population, followed by Samoans, Native Hawaiians, Tahitians, Tongans and Cook Islands Māori

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nuclear Polynesian languages</span> Language branch

Nuclear Polynesian refers to those languages comprising the Samoic and the Eastern Polynesian branches of the Polynesian group of Austronesian languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polynesian outlier</span> Polynesian societies outside the main region

Polynesian outliers are a number of culturally Polynesian societies that geographically lie outside the main region of Polynesian influence, known as the Polynesian Triangle; instead, Polynesian outliers are scattered in the two other Pacific subregions: Melanesia and Micronesia. Based on archaeological and linguistic analysis, these islands are considered to have been colonized by seafaring Polynesians, mostly from the area of Tonga, Samoa and Tuvalu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oceanic languages</span> Subgroup of the Austronesian language family

The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages. The area occupied by speakers of these languages includes Polynesia, as well as much of Melanesia and Micronesia. Though covering a vast area, Oceanic languages are spoken by only two million people. The largest individual Oceanic languages are Eastern Fijian with over 600,000 speakers, and Samoan with an estimated 400,000 speakers. The Gilbertese (Kiribati), Tongan, Tahitian, Māori and Tolai languages each have over 100,000 speakers. The common ancestor which is reconstructed for this group of languages is called Proto-Oceanic.

Futunan or Futunian is the Polynesian language spoken on Futuna. The term East-Futunan is also used to distinguish it from the related West Futunan (Futuna-Aniwan) spoken on the outlier islands of Futuna and Aniwa in Vanuatu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Takuu Atoll</span>

Takuu, formerly known as Tauu and also known as Nukutoa, Mortlock Island, or Marqueen Island, is a small, isolated atoll off the east coast of Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malayic languages</span> Subgroup of the Austronesian language family

The Malayic languages are a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian language family. The most prominent member is Malay, a pluricentric language given national status in Brunei and Singapore while also the basis for national standards Malaysian in Malaysia and Indonesian in Indonesia. The Malayic branch also includes local languages spoken by ethnic Malays, further several languages spoken by various other ethnic groups of Sumatra, Indonesia and Borneo even as far as Urak Lawoi in the southwestern coast of Thailand.

Austral is an endangered Polynesian language or a dialect continuum that was spoken by approximately 8,000 people in 1987 on the Austral Islands and the Society Islands of French Polynesia. The language is also referred to as Tubuai-Rurutu, Tubuai, Rurutu-Tupuai, or Tupuai. It is closely related to other Tahitic languages, most notably Tahitian and Māori.

Proto-Oceanic is a proto-language that historical linguists since Otto Dempwolff have reconstructed as the hypothetical common ancestor of the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian language family. Proto-Oceanic is a descendant of the Proto-Austronesian language (PAN), the common ancestor of the Austronesian languages.

Proto-Austronesian is a proto-language. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. Proto-Austronesian is assumed to have begun to diversify c. 4000 BCE – c. 3500 BCE in Taiwan.

Moken is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by inhabitants in southern Myanmar and Southern Thailand, who refer to themselves as Moken (people) and Mawken.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solomon Islands (archipelago)</span> Archipelago in the South Pacific spreading over two countries

The Solomon Islands (archipelago) is an island group in the western South Pacific Ocean, north-east of Australia. The archipelago is in the Melanesian subregion and bioregion of Oceania and forms the eastern boundary of the Solomon Sea. The many islands of the archipelago are distributed across Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands (country). The largest island in the archipelago is Bougainville Island, which is a part of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville along with Buka Island, the Nukumanu Islands, and a number of smaller nearby islands. Much of the remainder falls within the territory of Solomon Islands and include the atolls of Ontong Java, Sikaiana, the raised coral atolls of Bellona and Rennell, and the volcanic islands of Choiseul, Guadalcanal, Makira, Malaita, New Georgia, the Nggelas, Santa Isabel, and the Shortlands. The Santa Cruz Islands are not a part of the archipelago.

The Celebic languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages spoken on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, formerly called Celebes. Almost all of the languages spoken in the provinces of Central Sulawesi and Southeast Sulawesi belong to the Celebic group. A few Celebic languages are located in South Sulawesi province. By number of languages, Celebic is the largest subgroup of Austronesian languages on Sulawesi.

Takuu is a Polynesian language from the Ellicean group spoken on the atoll of Takuu, near Bougainville Island. It is very closely related to Nukumanu and Nukuria from Papua New Guinea and to Ontong Java and Sikaiana from Solomon Islands.

Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, which is by far the largest branch of the Austronesian language family. Proto-Malayo-Polynesian is ancestral to all Austronesian languages spoken outside Taiwan, as well as the Yami language on Taiwan's Orchid Island. The first systematic reconstruction of Proto-Austronesian ("Uraustronesisch") by Otto Dempwolff was based on evidence from languages outside of Taiwan, and was therefore actually the first reconstruction of what is now known as Proto-Malayo-Polynesian.

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Ontong Java is a Polynesian language located on the Ontong Java Atoll, also known as the Luangiua Atoll or Lord Howe island, in the Solomon Islands. Two dialects, Luangiua and Pelau, are also spoken on the island. Ontong Java is commonly used by all speakers, young and old. There is approximately 2,370 residents of Ontong Java Atoll and has approximately 2,400 (estimated) speakers living on the atoll.

References

  1. ↑ Nuguria at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ↑ Marck, Jeff (2000). Topics in Polynesian Languages and Culture History. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. doi: 10.15144/PL-504 . hdl: 1885/90887 . ISBN   9780858834682.
  3. ↑ Nukeria, Ethnologue, retrieved 19 October 2018
  4. 1 2 Kirch, P. V. (1984). "The Polynesian Outliers: Continuity, Change, and Replacement". The Journal of Pacific History. 19 (4): 224–238. doi:10.1080/00223348408572496. JSTOR   25168559.
  5. ↑ Wilson, William H. (1985). "Evidence for an Outlier Source for the Proto Eastern Polynesian Pronominal System". Oceanic Linguistics. 24 (1/2): 85–133. doi:10.2307/3623064. JSTOR   3623064.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Blust, R. A. (2009). The Austronesian Languages. Pacific Linguistics. Vol. 602. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. hdl:1885/10191.
  7. ↑ "The Austronesian Language Family". linguistics.byu.edu. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  8. ↑ "Malayo-Polynesian Languages". History.com. Archived from the original on 2009-04-20.
  9. ↑ Ray, Sidney H. (1919). "The Polynesian Languages in Melanesia. With Notes on the Neighbouring Melanesian Languages". Anthropos. 14/15 (1/3): 46–96. JSTOR   40443206.
  10. 1 2 Regan, Anthony J.; Griffin, Helga M., eds. (2015). Bougainville: Before the Conflict (2nd ed.). ANU eView. doi: 10.22459/bbc.08.2015 . ISBN   978-1-921934-24-7.
  11. ↑ Allen, Jerry; Hurd, Conrad (1963). "Languages". Languages of the Bougainville District. Summer Institute of Linguistics. p. 56.
  12. ↑ Tryon, Darell (2015). "The Languages of Bougainville". In Regan, Anthony J.; Griffin, Helga M. (eds.). Bougainville: Before the Conflict. ANU eView. pp. 31–46. doi: 10.22459/bbc.08.2015 . ISBN   978-1-921934-24-7.
  13. ↑ Ray, Sidney H. (1916). "Polynesian Linguistics. III. Polynesian Languages of the Solomon Islands". The Journal of the Polynesian Society. 25 (1): 18–23. JSTOR   20701126.
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