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Tokelauan
Tokelauan
Native to	Tokelau, Swains Island (American Samoa, United States)
Native speakers	(1,400 in Tokelau cited 1987); 17 in Swains Island, 2,100 elsewhere, mostly New Zealand (no date)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Polynesian Samoan–Tokelauan? Tokelauan; ; ; ; ;
Official status
Official language in	Tokelau
Language codes
ISO 639-2	tkl
ISO 639-3	tkl
Glottolog	toke1240

Tokelauan Background

Tokelau is a dependency of New Zealand and has three main parts: Atafu atoll, Nukunono atoll, and Fakaofo atoll. Together these three atolls lay roughly about seven hundred fifty miles away from Samoa. Tokelau's language, Tokelauan, belongs to the Austronesian language family and is considered to be part of the subgroup of Polynesian languages. There are nearly five thousand Tokelauan speakers. More than half of the speakers reside in New Zealand, about thirty percent live in either Atafu, Nukuonono, or Fakaofo, and the minority live in Australia (geographically close to New Zealand) and states in the United States that touch the Pacific Ocean (Hawaii and other western states part of the mainland). Since Tokelau lies very close to Samoa, it is common to think that the Tokelauan language has some Samoan language influences, but due to the lack in extensive documentation, it is inaccurate to assume such a thing. Tokelauan was still only considered to be a spoken language up until the 1960s. During the '60s schools began teaches their peoples how to read and write their own language. Short works were also produced in Tokelauan. Additionally, it was common for adults to be fluent in Samoan and Tokelauan. ^[1]

Tokelauan Alphabet

When Tokelauan became more than just a spoken language, like any other written language the peoples developed an alphabet. The Tokelauan alphabet consists of fifteen letters with five vowels and ten consonants. The alphabet is ordered in the following way: aeiou fgklmnphtv. Like English, vowels can be short or long. Moreover, vowels are lengthened for a more expressive statement. To indicate whether a vowel is read short or long, Tokelauan language denotes a long vowel with a macron over the letter symbol. A macron is a horizontal line, also seen in English. However, it is worthwhile to note that not all Tokelauan speaking peoples agree with the use of the macron. Those residing in the three atolls of Tokelau are known to have shown much resistance to the macron, while the Tokelauan speakers of New Zealand are more open and accepting of adopting the use of this linguistic symbol.^[1]

Although there is not a lot of available systemic data for Tokelauan word stressing, linguistics have developed three rules relating word stress and vowels based upon some previous evidence. The first rule is that a long vowel will receive the main stress. Secondly, with some exceptions to rule number one, the second to last vowel would be the main stress (if the long vowel is not the main stress). And thirdly, words do not lose their normal stress when compounded with another word. Furthermore, monosyllabic grammatical morphemes are left unstressed.^[1]

Types of Sentences

Similarly to English, for each clause in Tokelauan there is a predicate. There are five types of predicates including: verbal, locative, existential, possessive, and nominal. Each predicate is available for an interrogative and declarative statement, and can also have multiple predicates conjoined.^[1]

Verbal Predicates

-A verbal phrase will follow a verbal clause

Example: Kua fano '[S/he] has gone.'^[1]

(A type of verbal predicate is an evaluative predicate which can and usually occurs with no argument).

Locative Predicates

-preposition i and a noun phrase following a tense-aspect particle

Example: E i te faleha te faifeau 'The pastor is in the church.'^[1]

FOR CHOOSE YOUR TOPIC/ FIND YOUR SOURCES ASSIGNMENT:

I assigned the Grammatical Mood article to myself. I intend on adding the Tokelauan rules for subjunctive, conditional, optative, imperative, and other types of moods. I have just requested the Studies in Tokelauan syntax by Robin Hooper to source my research.

--Rebecca Rupley

Tokelauan /toʊkəˈlaʊən/^[3] is a Polynesian language spoken in Tokelau and on Swains Island in American Samoa. It is closely related to Tuvaluan and distantly related to Samoan and other Polynesian languages. Tokelauan has a co-official status with English in Tokelau . There are approximately 4,260 speakers of Tokelauan, of whom 2,100 live in New Zealand, 1,400 in Tokelau, and 17 in Swains Island.

Loimata Iupati, Tokelau's resident Director of Education, has stated that he is in the process of translating the Bible from English into Tokelauan.

Speakers

It is spoken by about 1,070 people on the atolls of Tokelau, and by the few inhabitants of Swains Island in neighbouring American Samoa. It is a member of the Samoic family of Polynesian languages.^[4] It is, alongside English, the official language of Tokelau. In addition to the population of Tokelau, it is spoken by approximately 2,900 Tokelauan expatriates in New Zealand. Its ISO 639-3 code is tkl.

Orthography

Tokelauan is written in the Latin script, albeit only using 15 letters: A, E, I, O, U, F, G, K, L, M, N, P, H, T, and V.

Its alphabet consists of 5 vowels: a (pronounced: /a/), e (pronounced: /e/), i (pronounced: /i/), o (pronounced: /o/) and u (pronounced: /u/);

and 10 consonants: f, ŋ (spelled as "g"), k, l, m, n, p, h, t, v.

Long vowels are marked with a macron above them: ā, ē, ī, ō, ū

Affinities with other languages

Tokelauan is mutually intelligible with the Tuvaluan language. Samoan literature is recognised mostly due to the early introduction of Christian Samoan missionaries to which the Samoan language was held as the language of instruction at school and at church ^{[citation needed]}. It also has marked similarities to the Niuafo'ou language of Tonga^{[citation needed]}.

Phrases

Tokelauan	English
Fanatu au là?	Shall I come too?
Ko toku nena e i Nukunonu.	My grandmother lives in Nukunonu.
Malo ni, ea mai koe?	Hello, how are you?
E hēai ni vakalele i Tokelau.	There are no airplanes in Tokelau.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Hooper, Robin (1994). Studies in Tokelauan syntax. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International. pp. 98–99.
^ ^a ^b Tokelauan at Ethnologue (15th ed., 2005)
^ Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student’s Handbook, Edinburgh
^ "Tokelauen". Retrieved January 25, 2017.

External links

[:0-1] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Hooper, Robin (1994). Studies in Tokelauan syntax. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International. pp. 98–99.

[e15-2] Tokelauan at Ethnologue (15th ed., 2005)

[3] Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student’s Handbook, Edinburgh

[4] "Tokelauen". Retrieved January 25, 2017.

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v t e Languages of Oceania
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