Nauruan language

Nauruan (autoglottonym dorerin Naoero) is a language spoken on the small island of Nauru. The estimated number of speakers is about 7,000, 50% of the population. Almost all speakers are bilingual in English.

It is part of the Micronesian languages and specifically of the Austronesian family.

Phonology

Consonants

Nauruan has 16 to 17 consonant phonemes. This language establishes phonemic contrast between velarized and palatalized labial consonants. Velarization is not apparent before long back vowels and palatalization is apparently not before non-open front vowels.

The voiceless stops are geminate and the nasals also have contrast in length. The dental stop consonants /t/ and /d/ become [tʃ] and [dʒ] respectively before closed front vowels.

Approximants become fricatives in "emphatic pronunciation." Nathan (1974) transcribes them as {j} and {w} but also emphasizes that they contrast with the non-syllabic allophones of closed vowels.

Depending on emphasis, /r/ can be a wave or trill. The exact phonetic nature of /rʲ/ is unknown. Nathan (1974) transcribes it as r̵ and speculates that it may behave like palatalized consonants and be partially devoiced.

Between a vowel and the /mˠ/ at the end of the word, the sound [b] epenthetic.

Vowels

There are 12 vowel phonemes (six long, six short). In addition to the allophone in the following table from Nathan (1974), a number of vowels are reduced to [ə]:

Non-open vowels (which are all except /aa/, /a/, /ɑɑ/ /ɑ/< /span>) become non-syllabic when they precede another vowel, as in /e-oeeoun/ → < span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA or IPA)" class="IPA">[ɛ̃õ̯ɛ̃õ̯ʊn] ('hide').

Accent

The strength of voice (emphasis) is in the penultimate syllable when the final syllable ends in a vowel, in the final syllable when it ends in a consonant and in the initial syllable with reduplications.

Writing system

In written Nauruan, 17 letters were originally used:

• The five vowels: a, e, i, o, u
• Twelve consonants: b, d, g, j, k, m, n, p, q, r, t, w

The letters c, f, h, l, s, v, x, y and z were not included. With the growing influence of foreign languages (especially German, Tok Pisin and Gilbertese ) more letters were incorporated into the Nauruan alphabet. In addition, phonetic differences arose for a few vowels, so that umlauts and other similar elements came to be indicated by an accent.

Language reform attempt of 1938

In 1938 there was an attempt by the Nauruan language committee and Timothy Detudamo to make the language easier to read for Europeans and Americans. It was an attempt to introduce as many diacritical symbols as possible to indicate the different vowel sounds and thus highlight the variety of the Nauruan language in writing. It was decided to introduce only a grave accent instead of the old accent, so the umlauts "õ" and "ũ" were replaced by the "ò" and the "ù". The "ã" was replaced by "e".

The "y" in order to differentiate words with "j" English (puji). Therefore, words like ijeiji were changed to iyeyi. Furthermore, the "ñ" (which represented the velar nasal sound) was replaced with "ng", to differentiate the Spanish Ñ, "bu" and "what" were replaced with "bw" and "kw" respectively, "ts" was replaced with "j" (since it represented a similar pronunciation to the English "j"), and the "w" written at the end of the words was removed.

These reforms were carried out in practice only in one way: the umlauts "õ" and "ũ" They are still written with accents. However, the letters "ã" and "ñ" now appear infrequently, being replaced by "e" and "ng", as prescribed by the reform. Likewise, the writing of the double consonants "bw" and "kw" has been implemented. Although the "j" will take the place of "ts", certain forms of writing still use "ts". For example, the districts of Biti and Ijuw (according to the reformed Beiji and Iyu) are still written with the old writing style. The "and" has largely been generally accepted.

Today the following 29 Latin letters are used:

• Vocales: a, ã, e, i, o, õ, u, 한
• Semivocales: j
• Consonants: b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, ñ, p, q, r, s, t, w, y, z

Dialects

According to a study published in Sydney in 1937, Nauru had a great diversity of dialects until the island became a German colony in 1888, and until the publication of the first texts written in Nauruan. The variations were so different that people from different districts almost always had trouble fully understanding each other. With the growth of the influence of foreign languages and with the increase in texts written in Nauruan, the dialects blended into a standard language, which was promoted through dictionaries and translations by Alois Kayser and Philip Delaporte.

Today there is significantly less dialectical variation. In the Yaren district and the surrounding area, an eponymous dialect is spoken that is only slightly different from standard Nauruan.

Texts

The Delaporte Nauruan Dictionary

In 1907, Philip Delaporte published his German-Nauruan pocket dictionary (Taschenwörterbuch Deutsch-Nauruisch). The dictionary includes 65 pages dedicated to a glossary and a dozen pages dedicated to phrases arranged alphabetically in German. Some 1,650 German words are translated into Nauruan, some as phrases or synonyms. There are about 1,300 unique Nauruan shapes. Accents are not common and only the accent is used today.

Text in Nauruan

¹Ñaga ã eitsiõk õrig imim, Gott õrig ianweron me eb. ²Me eitsiõk erig imin ñana bain eat eb, me eko õañan, mi itũr emek animwet ijited, ma Anin Gott õmakamakur animwet ebõk. ³Me Gott ũge, Enim eaõ, me eaõen. ⁴Me Gott ãt iaõ bwo omo, me Gott õekae iaõ mi itũr. ⁵Me Gott eij eget iaõ bwa Aran, me E ij eget itũr bwa Anũbũmin. Ma antsiemerin ma antsioran ar eken ũrõr adamonit ibũm. ⁶Me Gott ũge, Enim tsinime firmament inimaget ebõk, me enim ekae ebõk atsin eat ebõk. ⁷Me Gott eririñ firmament, mõ õ ekae ebõk ñea ijõñin firmament atsin eat ebõk ñea itũgain firmament, mõ ũgan. ⁸Me Gott eij egen firmament bwe Ianweron. Ma antsiemerin ma antsioran ar eke ũrõr karabũmit ibũm.

It is notable that the Nauruan vocabulary contains some words borrowed from German (for example Gott, God; and Firmament, firmament), which date back to the strong influence of the German missionaries. There are also words borrowed from Latin, such as "orig" (from the Latin origo, origin) that appear.

Some words