Pohnpeian language

Pohnpeian is a Micronesian language spoken as the indigenous language of the island of Pohnpei in the Caroline Islands. Pohnpeian has approximately 30,000 (estimated) native speakers living in Pohnpei and its outlying atolls and islands with another 10,000-15,000 (estimated) living off island in parts of the US mainland, Hawaii and Guam. It is the second-most widely spoken native language of the Federated States of Micronesia. Pohnpeian features a "high language" including some specialized vocabulary, used in speaking about people of high rank. Pohnpeian is most closely related to the Chuukic languages of Chuuk (formerly Truk). Ngatikese, Pingelapese and Mwokilese of the Pohnpeic languages are closely related languages to Pohnpeian. Pohnpeian shares 81% lexical similarity with Pingelapese, 75% with Mokilese, and 36% with Chuukese. Pohnpeian employs a great deal of loanwords from colonial languages such as English, Japanese, Spanish, and German. However, these "loanwords" are neither spelled or pronounced the same as the source language. The modern Pohnpeian orthography uses twenty letters — sixteen single letters and four digraphs — collated in a unique order: As German missionaries designed an early form of the orthography, Pohnpeian spelling uses -h to mark a long vowel, rather like German: dohl 'mountain'. The IPA equivalents of written Pohnpeian are as follows: Pohnpeian phonotactics generally allow syllables consisting of consonants (C) and vowels (V) accordingly: V, VC, CV, CVC. This basic system is complicated by Pohnpeian orthographical conventions and phonological processes. Orthographically, i is used to represent /j/, though it is often unwritten; -u is realized as /w/; and h indicates a long vowel (a spelling convention inherited from German). Thus, sahu is pronounced [sjaːw], never [sjahu]. Consecutive vowels are glided with [j] or [w], depending on the relative height and order of the vowels: diar is said [tijar] ("to find"); toai is [ ̻tɔji] ("to have a runny nose"); suwed is [sjuwɛt] ("bad"); and lou is [lowu] ("cooled").

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Related concepts (9)

Pingelapese language

The Pingelapese language is a Micronesian language native to Pingelap, an atoll belonging to the state of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia. This atoll is the homeland to the Pingelapese people, consisting of a three-square mile range of uninhabited small coral islets, Daekae and Sukora, and the inhabited islet, Pingelap. These islands partially make up the Caroline Islands. Because of natural disasters and emigration consequent to European and U.S. influence, the local population of the Pingelapese people is small.

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The Marshallese language (Kajin M̧ajel‌̧ or Kajin Majōl kajin mhahjelh), also known as Ebon, is a Micronesian language spoken in the Marshall Islands. Spoken by the ethnic Marshallese people, the language is spoken by nearly the country's entire population of 59,000, making it the principal language of the country. There are also roughly 27,000 Marshallese citizens residing in the United States, nearly all of whom speak Marshallese, as well as in other countries including Nauru and Kiribati.

Pohnpeian language