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'Gilbertese' or 'Kiribati' (sometimes ''Kiribatese'', a mixture of both) is a language from the Austronesian family, part of the Oceanian branch and of the Nuclear Micronesian subbranch. It is a verb object subject language.

Contents

Name

Speakers

Linguistics and study

Phonology

Written Kiribati

Useful phrases

Notes

Bibliography

External links

Name

The word ''Kiribati'' (1954) is just the modern rendition for "Gilberts", so most people do not care about translating this name in English, or not. ''Description of the language as Gilbertese or Kiribatese could be sometimes considered a relic of colonial days by some I-Kiribati (the people of Kiribati)'' (no reference for that last opinion).
The official description is ''taetae ni Kiribati'', or 'the Kiribati language'.
The first complete description of this language (and the first time ever one prints ''kiribati'' in a print book) was in ''Dictionnaire gilbertin-français'' of Father Ernest Sabatier (981p, 1954), a Catholic priest. This Dictionary has been translated into English later by Sister Olivia (with the help of South Pacific Commission).

Speakers

About 105,000 people speak Gilbertese, 98,000 of whom live in Kiribati, about 97.2% of the entire population. The others are the inhabitants of Nui (Tuvalu), Rabi Island (Fiji), Mili (Marshall Islands) and some other islands where I-Kiribati have been relocated (Solomon Islands -notably Choiseul Province- and Vanuatu) or emigrated (to New Zealand and Hawaii mainly).
Unlike many in the Pacific region, the Kiribati language is far from extinct, and just about all speakers use it daily. Only 30% of Kiribati speakers are fully bilingual with English, meaning that the language is in no current danger of being swallowed by the latter.
Fishermen, sailors, farmers and people involved in the production of copra comprise the majority of Kiribati speakers.

Linguistics and study

The Kiribati language has two main dialects: the Northern dialect and the Southern dialect. The main differences between them are in the pronunciation of some words. The islands of Butaritari and Makin also have their own dialect. It differs from the standard Kiribati in both vocabulary and pronunciation.

Phonology

Kiribati has 10 consonants and 10 vowels (5 short, five long)^[1]

Consonants

	Bilabial		Apical	Velar
	plain	velarized
Nasal	m	mˠ	n	ŋ
Plosive	p	pˠ	t1	k
Fricative		βˠ2
Flap			ɾ3

# is lenited to before
#The labiovelar fricative may be a flap and an approximant, depending on the context.^[1]
# does not occur in the syllable coda^[1]

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close1
Mid
Open

#Short and may become semivowels when followed by more sonorous vowels. → ('sail'). ^[1] Kiribati also possesses syllabic nasals, although syllabic and can only be followed by consonants that are homorganic. ^[1]
Quantity is distinctive for vowels and nasal consonants but not for the remaining sounds so that ''ana'' (third person singular article) contrasts with ''aana'' ('its underside') as well as ''anna'' ('dry land'). Other minimal pairs include:^[1]

Short	Long
te ben ('ripe coconut')	te been ('pen')
ti (1st person subj marker)	tii ('only')
on ('full')	oon ('the/some turtles')
te atu ('bundle')	te atuu ('head')
tuanga ('to tell someone')	tuangnga ('to tell')

Written Kiribati

The Kiribati language is written in the Latin alphabet, and has been since the 1840s, when Hiram Bingham Jr, a missionary, first translated the Bible into Kiribati. Previously, the language was unwritten.
One difficulty in translating the Bible was references to words such as "mountain", a geographical phenomenon unknown to the people of the islands of Kiribati at the time (only heard in the myths from Samoa). Bingham decided to use "hilly", which would be more easily understood. Such adjustments are common to all languages as "modern" things require creation of new words. The Gilbertese word for airplane is ''te wanikiba'', "the canoe that flies".
Catholic missionaries would later arrive at the islands in 1888 and translate the Bible independently of Bingham, resulting in differences (Bingham wrote Jesus as "Iesu", while the Catholics wrote "Ietu") that would only be resolved in the 20th century (No 's' in the Kiribati alphabet). In 1954, Father Ernest Sabatier published the best English-Kiribati Dictionary: ''Dictionnaire Gilbertin-Français'', 981p. (edited by South Pacific Commission in 1971).

'Kiribati Alphabet'^[7]

Letter	A	B	E	I	K	M	N	NG	O	R	T	U	W
IPA	/ä/	/p/	/e/	/i/	/k/	/m/	/n/	/ŋ/	/o/	/ɾ/	/t/	/u/	/βˠ/

Useful phrases

★ Hello - Mauri

★ Hello - [singular] Ko na mauri

★ Hello - [plural] Kam na mauri

★ How are you? - Ko uara?

★ How are you? - [to several people] Kam uara?

★ Thank you - Ko rabwa

★ Thank you - [to several people] Kam rabwa

★ Goodbye - Ti a bo (''we will meet'')

Notes

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7. http://www.trussel.com/kir/less10.htm

Bibliography

★

External links

★ English/Kiribati and Kiribati/English translator with over 50,000 words

★ Ethnologue report for Kiribati

★ Gilbertese words collection for SuperMemo

★ Dictionary with Gilbertese - English Translations from Webster's Online Dictionary - the Rosetta Edition