Marquesan language

Marquesan is a collection of East-Central Polynesian dialects, of the Marquesic group, spoken in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia. They are usually classified into two groups, North Marquesan and South Marquesan, roughly along geographic lines.

Phonology

The most striking feature of the Marquesan languages is their almost universal replacement of the or of other Polynesian languages by a (glottal stop).

Like other Polynesian languages, the phonology of Marquesan languages is characterized by a scarcity of consonants. The consonant phonemes are:

	Labial	Alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Fricative	Template:IPA link Template:IPA link			Template:IPA link
Nasal	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Liquid		Template:IPA link

Of this small number of consonants, is found only in eastern Nuku Hiva (Tai Pi Marquesan), and is found only in South Marquesan dialects. In writing, the phoneme is written Template:Angbr, and is written ʻ, the ʻokina.

Unlike most Austronesian languages, the is not an isolated nasal: it is found only in conjunction with a following . So, whereas the Samoan word for 'bay' is , pronounced , it is in Tai Pi Marquesan, and is pronounced . This word is useful to demonstrate one of the more predictable regular consonantal differences between the northern and southern dialects: in North Marquesan, the word is , and in South Marquesan, it is .

The phoneme is represented with the letter Template:Angbr; however, it is realized phonetically as , , or , depending on the following vowel.

The vowel phonemes are the same as in other Polynesian languages, long and short versions of each:

	Front		Central		Back
	Short	Long	Short	Long	Short	Long
High
Mid
Low

In their study of the Ùa Pou dialect of Marquesan, Mutu and Teìkitutoua interpret the long vowels as sequences of two identical vowels , and list their allophones as , while noting that is slightly raised.

is when following another vowel, elsewhere.

is when preceding a high vowel, following , and elsewhere.

is , though slightly higher before other vowels, especially and .

is , which slightly assimilates to the frontness of adjacent vowels.

is .

Alphabet

Marquesan alphabet

A

E

F

H

I

K

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

U

V

a

e

f

h

i

k

m

n

o

p

r

s

t

u

v

The Marquesan Language Academy has adopted an orthography similar to Turo Raapoto's Tahitian orthography, using the grave on the vowels to indicated a preceding glottal stop consonant, the macron to indicate a long vowel and the circumflex to indicate both. Some authors use the apostrophe Template:Angbr or the turned apostrophe Template:Angbr to write the glottal stop, as is done in several other Polynesian languages.

Morphosyntax

Noun and verb phrases

Verbal particles are placed before the verb they modify.

Verbal Phrase

Verbal Particles		example	example in a sentence
past		(asked)	(the youth asked)
present		(think)	(I think of my mother)
perfective		(was born)	(I was born at Hakehatau)
imperfective		(going)	(where are you going?)
inceptive		(then they eat)	(...when finish that, then do they eat)
imperative		(go!)	(go to the doctor!)

A noun phrase in Marquesan is any phrase beginning with either a case marker or a determiner. Case markers or prepositions always precede the determiners, which in turn precede the number markers. As such, they all precede the noun they modify.

Nominal Phrase Markers

Articles		Demonstratives		Other
definite singular		this		a certain
indefinite		that		other
dual/paucal definite		that
anaphoric

Nominal Number Markers	Number Markers
dual
dual/paucal
plural

There are 11 personal pronouns which are distinguished by singular, dual, and plural. As well as that, there are two other personal pronouns which distinguish possession.Template:SfnTemplate:Rp

PronounsTemplate:SfnTemplate:Rp

		Singular	Dual/Paucal	Plural	Possession
1st person	exclusive
	inclusive
2nd person
3rd person

Complex sentences use verbal nouns in subordinate clauses.

Hanaiapa, o Tua-i-kaie, ua noho me te vehine pootu oko

Possession

Margaret Mutu & Ben Teìkitutoua (2002) present descriptions and examples of possession in Ùa Pou (a north Marquesan dialect). All examples in this section are taken from their work. See notes for more information.

Possession in Marquesan is marked by prepositional particles affixed to the noun phrase which they modify. These prepositional particles relate the phrase as a whole to other parts of the sentence or discourse and therefore can be considered centrifugal particles. Possession is essentially different from the other types of adposition modification in that it marks a relationship between two noun phrases as opposed to that between the verbal phrase and the noun phrase.

There are four possession markers in Marquesan. They are the prepositions: , , and . Possessive prepositions and translate as 'of' while and are attributive, possessive prepositions which translate either as 'belong to, of' or 'for'.

a and o possessive prepositions

In these examples, the relation of two noun phases with the use of the possessive prepositions and can be seen. The preposition is affixed to the possessor noun phrase which in turn dominates the possessed phrase.

na and no attributive, possessive prepositions

In these examples, we see the relation of constituents which form a noun phrase. This is an example of attributive, alienable possession.

Dominant vs subordinate possession

Marquesan distinguishes between two contrastive types of possession. The first can be described in very broad terms as possession in which the possessor is dominant, active, superior, or in control of the possessed. and mark this type of possession:

On the other hand, and indicate possession where the possessor is subordinate, passive, inferior to, or lacking in control over the possessed:

Locative phrases

Locative constructions in Marquesan follow this pattern (elements in parentheses are optional):

Preposition - (Modifier) - lexical head - (Directional) - (Demonstrative) - (Modifier) - Possessive Attribute/Attributive Noun PhrasesTemplate:SfnTemplate:Rp

This locative syntactic pattern is common among Polynesian languages.Template:SfnTemplate:Rp

Dialect diversity

North Marquesan is spoken in the northern islands (Nuku Hiva, Ua Pou, and Ua Huka), and South Marquesan in the southern islands (Hiva Oa, Tahuata, and Fatu Hiva). In Ua Huka, which was almost entirely depopulated in the 19th century and repopulated with people from both the Northern and Southern Marquesas, the language shares traits of both North Marquesan and South Marquesan. Comparative data on the various dialects of Marquesan can be found in the Linguistic Atlas of French Polynesia (Charpentier & François 2015).

The most noticeable differences between the varieties are Northern Marquesan in some words where South Marquesan has or (glottal stop), and in all words where South Marquesan has .

The table below compares a selection of words in various dialectal varieties of Marquesan, according to the Linguistic Atlas of French Polynesia, with their pronunciation in the IPA. Tahitian and Hawaiian are also added for comparison.

	North Marquesan			South Marquesan		Hawaiian	Tahitian
	Nuku Hiva	Ua Pou	Ua Huka	Hiva Oa	Fatu Hiva	Hawaii	Tahiti
hello							( 'love, compassion')
human being
life
body
mouth
head
to see
to speak						( 'to tell tales')
dog
louse
yesterday
sky
moon
wind
sea							( 'sea, salt')
coral						( 'plaster, mortar')
fish
octopus
island, land
river
taro
coconut
house
man (male)
woman
grandmother	('grandparent mother')	/ ('grandparent mother')	('grandparent mother')	('grandparent woman')	('grandparent woman')	('grandparent woman')	('mom old person')
chief, king
traditional temple precinct, marae
you (singular)

The northern dialects fall roughly into four groups:

• Tai Pi, spoken in the eastern third of Nuku Hiva, and according to some linguists, a separate language, Tai Pi Marquesan
• Teiʻi, spoken in western Nuku Hiva
• Eastern Ua Pou
• Western Ua Pou

The southern dialects fall roughly into three groups:

• Pepane: Eastern Hiva ʻOa and Ua Huka
• Fatu Hiva
• Nuku: Western Hiva ʻOa and Tahuata

North Marquesan exhibits some original characteristics. While some Polynesian languages maintained the velar nasal , many have lost the distinction between the nasals and , merging both into . North Marquesan, like South Island Māori dialects of New Zealand, prefers . Another feature is that, while some Polynesian languages replace *k with , North Marquesan has retained it. (Tahitian and formal Samoan have no whatsoever, and the in modern Hawaiian is pronounced either [k] or [t] and derives from Polynesian *t.)

The dialects of Ua Huka are often incorrectly classified as North Marquesan; they are instead transitional. While the island is in the northern Marquesas group, the dialects show more morphological and phonological affinities with South Marquesan. The North Marquesan dialects are sometimes considered two separate languages: North Marquesan and Tai Pi Marquesan, the latter being spoken in the valleys of the eastern third of the island of Nuku Hiva, in the ancient province of Tai Pi. Puka-Pukan, spoken in Puka-Puka and the Disappointment Islands in northeastern Tuamotu, is a dialect of South Marquesan, and should not be confused with the homonymous Pukapukan language spoken in Pukapuka, one of the Cook Islands.

References

DIR:directional

Further reading

• Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum Bulletins.

External links

• Online version of the Grammaire et dictionnaire de la langue des Iles Marquises – Marquisien–Français (Paris, Institut d'Ethnologie, 1931) Template:In lang
• Aperçu de la langue des îles Marquises et de la langue taïtienne, accompagné d'un vocabulaire inédit de la langue taïtienne (Johann Buschmann & Guillaume de Humboldt, Berlin, 1843) Template:In lang
• DoBeS — Marquesan language
• Box of 458 index cards of plant and animal names archived with Kaipuleohone