Gilbertese language
Spoken in
- Austronesian Malayo -Polynesian The Central East east oceanic micronesian Kiribati
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Gil
Gil
Kiribati (on Kiribati: kiribati [' kiribɛs ] ), often also referred to Gilbertese is a mainly South Pacific nation of Kiribati spoken language. It belongs to the family of Austronesian languages , in the branch of the Malayo -Polynesian languages, and in turn to the Micronesian language group. Kiribati is in addition to English is the official language of the Republic of Kiribati and is spoken by a total of over 100,000 people as a native language.
Dissemination
Except in Kiribati, the rest of the population on Banaba and resettled by the by Rabi (Fiji) Banabaern the language is occasionally still spoken in Fiji, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. Larger groups of expatriate Kiribatiern who speak the language, there are in New Zealand and the U.S. state of Hawaii. The Nuier the island of Tuvalu Nui speak as Micronesians a gilbertesischen dialect. Likewise, the various atolls differ in Kiribati dialect in pronunciation and word meaning. The dialect boundary between the Northern and the Southern Gilbert Islands. The lexical similarity with the pohnapeischen language is 26%.
According to system
The Kiribati sound system contains 13 phonemes: the vowels / a, e, i, o, u / and the consonants / b, k, m, n, r, t, w / and the digraph / ng /.
Alphabet
The alphabet consists of 13 (Latin ) letters: A, B, E, I, K, M, N, O, R, T, U, W, and the digraph NG.
In established foreign words and the Latin letters
Pronunciation
The pronunciation is not always as in English. Differences are there in the following letter:
- A: The "a " is pronounced differently depending on word and context. There are two options:
- If an "open A" behind a "b" or "m" is, it is in modern times often a "w " prefix (eg: " tabwakea " ( turtle ), older spelling: " tabakea "; " mwaneaba ", another way of writing: " maneba ").
- B: The "b" is usually pronounced as in English, but sometimes also replaces the "v" in foreign words.
- I: Normally, the "i" is pronounced as in English. Is it, however, after a " t " as " final i " at the end of a word ( in compound words at the end of a part of the word), it is not spoken in some cases ( such as the "e" in French, for example, Pierre ). The fact that is pronounced as "s", " t " before " i" (see pronunciation of " t" ), the pronunciation of Kiribati results as " Kiribas " and of Kiritimati as " Kirismas ". In cases where "i" is pronounced with after a " t", can, according to recent case the "i" also appears repeatedly, for example, in the name of " Tiito " for [ si: to].
- NG: The digraph " ng " [ ŋ ] is pronounced as in the German word " slope ".
- R: The "r" [ ɾ ] is " simply rolled" as in the Spanish word " pero " (but ). In German, there is no equivalent to a " just rolled r".
- T: Is the "t" in front of an "i", it is like the "s" in the German word "hate " [s ] pronounced. The word "ti" (we ) is thus pronounced " si ". In all other cases, the letter sounds like the "t" in German.