Nukuoro language

The Nukuoro language is a Polynesian Outlier language, spoken by about 1,200 people on Nukuoro Atoll and on Pohnpei, two islands of Pohnpei State within the Federated States of Micronesia. Nukuoro is a remote coral atoll with a population of about 150, where the primary language is Nukuoro. An additional several hundred Nukuoro speakers live in Kolonia, Pohnpei, with smaller diaspora communities elsewhere in Micronesia and in the United States. Most Nukuoro speakers, particularly those that live away from Nukuoro Atoll, are multilingual in Pohnpeian and/or English; some older Nukuoro speakers also know German or Japanese.

Nukuoro
Nukuoro
Native to	Micronesia
Region	Western Nukuoro Island
Native speakers	700 (2016) 140 in the U.S. (no date)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Polynesian Ellicean Nukuoro
Language codes
ISO 639-3	nkr
Glottolog	nuku1260
ELP	Nukuoro
Nukuoro is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Classification

Nukuoro belongs to the Polynesian language family, a branch of the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian family. It is closely related to other Polynesian languages, with considerable phonological and lexical similarities. Within the Polynesian branch, Nukuoro is a member of the Polynesian Outliers, which are spoken by island populations in Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia. Nukuoro is most closely related to Kapingamarangi, the only other Polynesian language found in Micronesia. While the two languages are not mutually intelligible, it is nonetheless possible for a speaker of one language to make themselves understood to a speaker of the other with some difficulty.

Language use and orthography

Population

The primary language spoken on the Nukuoro atoll is Nukuoro. In 1965 there were approximately 400 speakers. 260 of these speakers resided on the atoll, 125 lived on Ponape, the District Center, and a few others were spread out on the other islands in the District (Carroll 1965). The current population is estimated to be at about 1000 speakers.

Orthography

The Nukuoro writing system was developed by Chief Leka in the 1920s, perhaps with the assistance of resident Europeans or missionaries in Ponape. It is known and used in some form by nearly all Nukuoro speakers, and has been the educational standard since its creation. The Nukuoro orthography differs from other Polynesian orthographies in that voiceless stop phonemes /p t k/ are written using the letters b d g, a choice that probably stems from the fact that Nukuoro voiceless stops are unaspirated like English voiced stops.

Phonology

Vowels

There are 5 vowel qualities in Nukuoro: /a, e, i, o, u/. Vowel length is contrastive, and long vowels are represented by writing the vowel symbol twice. Long vowels are about twice as long as a short vowel, and are not rearticulated. The phonemic geminate /aː/ is often realized phonetically as [æ].

Monophthongs

	Short		Long
	front	back	front	back
Close	i	u	iː	uː
Mid	e	o	eː	oː
Open	a		aː

Consonants

There are 10 consonants in Nukuoro, each of which is contrastive for length. Geminate consonants are articulated for about twice as long as a singleton consonant, with the exception of stops and taps: geminate stops are articulated with increased aspiration, and geminate taps are articulated as a long, pre-voiced dental or retroflex stop. Geminate consonants are typically found stem-initially, and are often created by reduplication.

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p pː	t tː	k kː
Fricative	v vː	s sː		h hː
Nasal	m mː	n nː	ŋ ŋː
Tap		ɾ ɾː

Like many Polynesian languages, Nukuoro has only three stops in its phonemic inventory: /p/, /t/, and /k/. These stops are unaspirated and can be variably voiced, but are phonemically voiceless. The orthography of Nukuoro represents these voiceless stops with b, d, g. The alveolar tap /ɾ/ is represented in Nukuoro orthography using the letter l, although early records of Nukuoro (and in fact, the spelling of the language name itself) use r.

Since singleton /p/, /t/, /k/ are written with b, d, g, geminate /p/, /t/, /k/ are written with p, t, k. Geminated /m/, /n/, /s/, /h/, /ɾ/ are represented with double letters (mm, nn, ss, hh, ll), and geminated /ŋ/ is written as nng.

Syllable structure

Syllables take the shapes V, VV, VVV, CV, CVV and CVVV. All possible V and VV combinations occur. All possible CV combinations occur except /vu/. The first member of a diphthong is always the syllabic peak when the syllable is stressed; elsewhere there is little difference between members, the peak of sonority tending to occur on the most naturally sonorous vowel.

Grammar

Reduplication

Reduplication is one of the most productive morphological processes in Nukuoro. Reduplication is most common for adjectives and verbs.

There are two types of reduplication in Nukuoro: phoneme reduplication, which doubles the first sound to make a geminate, and full reduplication, which copies the first two syllables.

Phoneme reduplication usually differentiates between singular and plural.

bedi

fat.SG

→

 

pedi

fat.PL

bedi → pedi

fat.SG {} fat.PL

lava

finished.SG

→

 

llava

finished.PL

lava → llava

finished.SG {} finished.PL

Full reduplication indicates that an event happens repeatedly.

galo

look

→

 

galogalo

look all around

galo → galogalo

look {} {look all around}

seni

sleep

→

 

seniseni

oversleep

seni → seniseni

sleep {} oversleep

daba

flash of light

→

 

dabadaba

twinkling, flashing

daba → dabadaba

{flash of light} {} {twinkling, flashing}

Basic clause structure

The basic word order in Nukuoro is Subject-Verb-Object, but there are also cases of Verb-Subject-Object.

Template for a basic Nukuoro sentence with example:

Au

1SG

subject

e

NPST

aspect

dugu

put

verb

ange

DIR.3

particles

de beebaa

DET book

object

gi honga tebele.

to top DET.table

prepositional phrase

Au e dugu ange {de beebaa} {gi honga tebele}.

1SG NPST put DIR.3 {DET book} {to top DET.table}

subject aspect verb particles object {prepositional phrase}

'I put the book on the table.'

Verbs generally do not show any agreement or inflection, and nouns are not marked morphologically for case. Historically, Nukuoro had an ergative-absolutive alignment, a system retained in many related languages.

Pronouns

Basic pronouns

Nukuoro distinguishes singular, dual, and plural, as well as inclusive and exclusive we.

		singular	dual	plural
1st person	exclusive	au	gidaau	gidaadeu
	inclusive		gimaau	gimaadeu
2nd person		goe	gooluu	goodou
3rd person		ia	gilaau	gilaadeu

Genitive pronouns

The genitive pronouns are built off the basic pronoun paradigm.

The a/o distinction marks alienability: o marks inalienable possession, and a marks alienable possession. Some genitive pronouns do not mark the a vs. o distinction and are used for both.

		Paradigm for possessed singulars			Paradigm for possessed plurals
		singular	dual	plural	singular	dual	plural
1st person	exclusive	dagu/dogu	taau	taadeu	agu/ogu	adaau/odaau	adaadeu/odaadeu
	inclusive		demaau	demaadeu		amaau/omaau	amaadeu/omaadeu
2nd person		dau/doo	dooluu	doodou	au/oo	ooluu	oodou
3rd person		dana/dono	delaau	delaadeu	ana/ono	alaau/olaau	alaadeu/olaadeu

Aspect markers

Aspect, as opposed to tense, marks "[the] different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation".

e		general aspect
ga		anticipatory aspect
gu		decisive aspect
ne		perfect
gi		prescriptive
nogo		past progressive
tigi		'not yet'
kana		warning
mele		hypothetical
goi		'still'

Endangerment

Materials

There are few solid resources for the Nukuoro language. The primary and probably most informative one is Vern Carroll's book An Outline of the Structure of the Language of Nukuoro. There is also a Nukuoro Lexicon that has English to Nukuoro and Nukuoro to English, as well as grammar notes.

In 2013, Gregory D.S. Anderson and K. David Harrison of Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages created the Nukuoro Talking Dictionary, a digital lexicon that includes sound recordings of Nukuoro words. This lexicon was initially populated with sound recordings from Nukuoro speakers Johnny Rudolph, Maynard Henry, and Kurt Erwin. This dictionary continues to be augmented by speakers and linguists and includes over 1000 audio tokens.

Vitality

Nukuoro is listed as a developing language. Ethnologue states that this means it is in vigorous use but isn't yet widespread. It is being transmitted to children, and is used in schools, government, and daily life. After World War 2, there were already efforts to help preserve the language as the United States set up an elementary school taught completely in Nukuoro. The population of speakers also increased from 400 to 1000 since 1965, which shows positive growth.

Further reading

• Carroll, V. (1965). An Outline Of The Structure Of The Language Of Nukuoro. Wellington, New Zealand: The Polynesian Society.
• Drummond, Emily; Rudolph, Johnny; Harrison, K. David (2019). "A Nukuoro creation story". Pacific Asia Inquiry. 10 (1): 141–171.
• Dryer, Matthew S.; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Nukuoro language". World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
• Nukuoro language at Ethnologue (17th ed., 2013)
• Newton, D. "Figure of a divinity" (PDF). Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
• "Nukuoro". Endangered Languages Project.
• Sato; Terrell, J. (2012). Language in Hawai'i and the Pacific. Honolulu: Curriculum Research & Developmental Group.

See also

• Kapingamarangi language
• Polynesian outlier
• Polynesian languages
• Tokelauan language

External links

• 436 index cards of plant and animal names archived with Kaipuleohone
• Nukuoro digital lexical database archived with Kaipuleohone