October brought together four Pacific language weeks: Gana Tuvalu – 1st October to 7th October, Vosa Vakaviti – 8th October to 14th, Vagahau Niuē – 15th October to 21st October, Gagana Tokelau – 22nd October - 28th October, out of the total of nine Pacific language weeks celebrated annually. I have shared three linguistic feature bites about each of these languages.
Gana Tuvalu / Tuvaluan The Gagana Sāmoa/Samoan language was introduced in Tuvalu when the Samoan missionary administered the churches in Tuvalu. Until 1977, when the Gana Tuvalu version of the New Testament was published, people had used the Samoan version.
Partial or full reduplication in Gana Tuvalu is common. For example, when changing verb subject – verb agreement to plural. Table 1 shows reduplication as well as the differences in the North and South of Tuvalu.
Gana Tuvalu relies heavily on verb usage and Tuvaluans tend to prefer using verbs over nouns. Nouns can be formed from many verbs by adding the suffix –ga. In Southern dialects, adding -ga lengthens the last vowel of the verb root of the new noun. Many nouns can also be used as verbs.
Vosa vaka viti / Fijian language In Vosa Vakaviti, there is a complex chain of over thirty dialects. The extreme western and extreme eastern varieties are mutually unintelligible. For example, the Yasawa archipelago is north-west of Viti Levu, which is the most populated island of Fiji. There are twenty-five villages in the Yasawas, and the majority are situated on the larger islands of Naviti (7), Yasawa (6), Nacula (4) and Waya (4). People of the islands have close traditional links with the Ba district of the mainland. Similar to other areas west of a divide from Tavua on the north coast of Viti Levu to the mouth of the Navua River in the south, people speak a series of communalects which form part of the larger dialect complex known as Western Fijian (Triffitt, 2000).
It has the basic word orders of V (verb) O (object) S (subject) and VSO respectively. However, there is considerable freedom in the order in which constituents can occur.
Most Pacific languages do not show gender in pronouns. Vosa Vakaviti is consistent with this and uses o koya which means ‘he,’ ‘she,’ and ‘it.’ (Geraghty, 1983, as cited in Lynch, Ross & Crowley, 1998).
Vagahau Niuē / Niuean Vagahau Niuē and Lea-Faka Tonga are the only two members of the Tongic subgroup of the Polynesian family. This subgrouping is supported by both phonological and morphological evidence.
In Vagahau Niuē, all short vowels may combine with each other to form diphthongs. Possible diphthongs are: /ae/ /ai/ /ao/ /au/ /ea/ /ei/ /eo/ /eu/ /ia/ /ie/ /io/ /iu/ /oa/ /oe/ /oi/ /ou/ /ua/ /ue/ /ui/ /uo/.
Vagahau Niuē consists of two main dialects, the Motu dialect in the north of the island and the Tafiti dialect in the south. Motu means ‘the people of the island’ and Tafiti means ‘the strangers – or people from a distance). Table 2 shows some vocabulary differences between the two dialects:
Gagana Tokelau / Tokelauan Tokelau is mutually intelligible with Tuvaluan. The recognition of Samoan literature was largely due to its early introduction by Christian Samoan missionaries, who used Gagana Sāmoa as the language of instruction in schools and churches. It also has striking similarities with the Niuafo’ou language of Tonga.
Another interesting linguistic feature is the distribution of “the” and “this”. In English these two words precede a noun – in “the boat” or “this boat”. They can’t appear together, meaning we wouldn’t say “the this boat”. In linguistics, this is referred to as a “slot” in the grammar that takes either “the” or “this”. But in Gagana Tokelau this one-slot theory doesn’t work. Therefore, we can have both “te” (the) and “tēnei” (this) together, making “te vaka tēnei” (the this boat). In other words, Gagana Tokelau has two slots – one before the noun and one after it.
While printed and spoken Gagana Tokelau can reflect vocabulary and accent (intonation) differences between the Gagana Tokelau spoken in the Atafu, Nukunonu, and Fakaofo communities, these differences are becoming less apparent with each generation. Nowadays, when listening to a young person speaking, for example, it is no longer always easy to tell which atoll they come from (The Tokelau Department of education, n.d.)
References Jackson, G. & Jackson, J. (1999). An Introduction to Tuvaluan. Suva: Oceania 1999.
Tukimata, N. (2017). Tia E Lili Ke Mau. Regeneration of Vagahau Niue: A case study of Niue youth through the Ekalesia in Niue and in Auckland (Master’s thesis, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand). Retrieved from https://openrepository.aut.ac.nz/items/e05f88f9-057a-4668-8eba-3b6c80536ad9
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2023 - Pasifika - Term 4 Newsletter Articles
Gana Tuvalu / Tuvaluan The Gagana Sāmoa/Samoan language was introduced in Tuvalu when the Samoan missionary administered the churches in Tuvalu. Until 1977, when the Gana Tuvalu version of the New Testament was published, people had used the Samoan version.
Partial or full reduplication in Gana Tuvalu is common. For example, when changing verb subject – verb agreement to plural. Table 1 shows reduplication as well as the differences in the North and South of Tuvalu.
Gana Tuvalu relies heavily on verb usage and Tuvaluans tend to prefer using verbs over nouns. Nouns can be formed from many verbs by adding the suffix –ga. In Southern dialects, adding -ga lengthens the last vowel of the verb root of the new noun. Many nouns can also be used as verbs.
Vosa vaka viti / Fijian language In Vosa Vakaviti, there is a complex chain of over thirty dialects. The extreme western and extreme eastern varieties are mutually unintelligible. For example, the Yasawa archipelago is north-west of Viti Levu, which is the most populated island of Fiji. There are twenty-five villages in the Yasawas, and the majority are situated on the larger islands of Naviti (7), Yasawa (6), Nacula (4) and Waya (4). People of the islands have close traditional links with the Ba district of the mainland. Similar to other areas west of a divide from Tavua on the north coast of Viti Levu to the mouth of the Navua River in the south, people speak a series of communalects which form part of the larger dialect complex known as Western Fijian (Triffitt, 2000).
It has the basic word orders of V (verb) O (object) S (subject) and VSO respectively. However, there is considerable freedom in the order in which constituents can occur.
Most Pacific languages do not show gender in pronouns. Vosa Vakaviti is consistent with this and uses o koya which means ‘he,’ ‘she,’ and ‘it.’ (Geraghty, 1983, as cited in Lynch, Ross & Crowley, 1998).
Vagahau Niuē / Niuean Vagahau Niuē and Lea-Faka Tonga are the only two members of the Tongic subgroup of the Polynesian family. This subgrouping is supported by both phonological and morphological evidence.
In Vagahau Niuē, all short vowels may combine with each other to form diphthongs. Possible diphthongs are: /ae/ /ai/ /ao/ /au/ /ea/ /ei/ /eo/ /eu/ /ia/ /ie/ /io/ /iu/ /oa/ /oe/ /oi/ /ou/ /ua/ /ue/ /ui/ /uo/.
Vagahau Niuē consists of two main dialects, the Motu dialect in the north of the island and the Tafiti dialect in the south. Motu means ‘the people of the island’ and Tafiti means ‘the strangers – or people from a distance). Table 2 shows some vocabulary differences between the two dialects:
Gagana Tokelau / Tokelauan Tokelau is mutually intelligible with Tuvaluan. The recognition of Samoan literature was largely due to its early introduction by Christian Samoan missionaries, who used Gagana Sāmoa as the language of instruction in schools and churches. It also has striking similarities with the Niuafo’ou language of Tonga.
Another interesting linguistic feature is the distribution of “the” and “this”. In English these two words precede a noun – in “the boat” or “this boat”. They can’t appear together, meaning we wouldn’t say “the this boat”. In linguistics, this is referred to as a “slot” in the grammar that takes either “the” or “this”. But in Gagana Tokelau this one-slot theory doesn’t work. Therefore, we can have both “te” (the) and “tēnei” (this) together, making “te vaka tēnei” (the this boat). In other words, Gagana Tokelau has two slots – one before the noun and one after it.
While printed and spoken Gagana Tokelau can reflect vocabulary and accent (intonation) differences between the Gagana Tokelau spoken in the Atafu, Nukunonu, and Fakaofo communities, these differences are becoming less apparent with each generation. Nowadays, when listening to a young person speaking, for example, it is no longer always easy to tell which atoll they come from (The Tokelau Department of education, n.d.)
References Jackson, G. & Jackson, J. (1999). An Introduction to Tuvaluan. Suva: Oceania 1999.
Tukimata, N. (2017). Tia E Lili Ke Mau. Regeneration of Vagahau Niue: A case study of Niue youth through the Ekalesia in Niue and in Auckland (Master’s thesis, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand). Retrieved from https://openrepository.aut.ac.nz/items/e05f88f9-057a-4668-8eba-3b6c80536ad9
