Nukuoro language

History

Nukuoro is a coral atoll and Polynesian outlier found within the Pohnpei District within the Federated States of Micronesia. Despite the fact that Nukuoro is a Micronesian atoll, from a typological perspective, Nukuoro is a Polynesian language that descends from the Austronesian node. Its most immediate node is the Elliciean node. This language is most closely related to Kapingamarangi, Rennellese, and Vaeakau-Taumako sporting lexical similarity (Carroll 1965). These languages are not mutually intelligible, but they can make themselves understand each other with a little bit of difficulty. Bilingualism is not a common feature among the Nukuoro people, although the majority of the older Nukuoro population have a considerable amount of knowledge in Ponapean, sometimes know some German, Japanese, English, or another Micronesian language. This second language is usually reserved for the classroom, Bible reading, conversation with visitors, etc.

Nukuoro was colonized multiple times, by Germany, Japan, and then also some by the United States of America in its lifetime. The history that local legend has it says that immigrants from another island first populated Nukuoro. Two canoes from Samoa under the leadership of Chief Ko Wave and his priestly father Teakhu lead this movement (Newton).

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. The Nukuoro people are very dependent on the sea. They have a strong respect for the marine culture, and are very well known for their skillfully created wooden sculptures. These often are carved to represent marine animals.

Vowels

There are 5 vowels in Nukuoro: /a, e, i, o, u/. There are also lengthened vowels, for example ‘’taane’’. Double vowels are represented by writing the vowel symbol twice. The phonemic geminate /aa/ is often realized phonetically as [æ]. ^[4]

Consonants

There are 10 consonants in Nukuoro.

Like many Polynesian languages, Nukuoro has only three stops in its phonemic inventory: /p/, /t/, and /k/. These stops 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.

There are also lengthened consonants, as in the word hhano. Since singleton /p/, /t/, /k/ are written with b, d, g, geminated /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.^[5].

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 (Carroll 1956).

Phonemes

In the Nukuoro language, each phoneme is distinct: “/b/ is an aspirated bilabial stop, /d/ is a lax aspirated dental stop, /g/ is a slightly aspirated of implosive velar stop, /v/ is a very lax labio-dental fricative, /s/ is a tense voiceless alveo-palatal fricative, /h/ is a voiceless velar fricative, /m/ is a voiced bilabial nasal, /n/ is a voiced dental nasal, /ng/ is a voiced velar nasal, /l/ is a voiced dental flap, /i/ is a high front unrounded vowel, /e/ is a mid front unrounded vowel, /a/ us a low or mid central unrounded vowel, /o/ is a mid back rounded vowel, and /u/ is a high back rounded vowel” (Carroll 1965). For double phonemes “stops have increased aspiration especially after pause, and articulation is tense and phones are normally voiceless; nasals and fricatives have tense articulation; flaps are tense, long, with pre-voiced dental stop; and vowels are about twice as long as single vowels and not rearticulated” (Carroll 1965).

Basic Word Order

The basic word order in Nukuoro is Subject-Object-Verb, but there are also cases of Verb-Subject-Object. An example sentence: Au ne gidee de gaago "I saw the chicken"

Reduplication

There are four types of reduplication. R1 appears in nouns, adjectives, and verbs, while R2, R3 and R4 appear only in adjectives and verbs. R1 is reduplication of the entire base. So, for example, gohu "dark" and gohugohu means "getting dark". R2 is reduplication of the first syllable of a base. For example, gai means "eat" and gagai means "the fish are biting". R3 is reduplication of the initial consonant of a base. For example, seni means "sleep" and sseni means "to sleep". R4 is reduplication of the initial vowel of a base. For example, malemo, which is a singular subject, and maalemo, which is plural subject

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 ended 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.