Palauan language
| Palauan | |
|---|---|
| a tekoi er a Belau | |
| Native to | Palau, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands |
|
Native speakers
|
17,000 (2008) |
|
Austronesian
|
|
| Latin, formerly katakana | |
| Official status | |
|
Official language in
|
 Palau
|
| Regulated by | Palau Language Commission |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | pala1344 |
| Linguasphere | |
Palauan (a tekoi er a Belau) is one of the two official languages of the Republic of Palau, the other being English. It is a member of the Austronesian family of languages, and is one of only two indigenous languages in Micronesia that is not part of the Oceanic branch of that family, the other being Chamorro (see Dempwolff 1934, Blust 1977, Jackson 1986, and Zobel 2002). Most researchers agree that Palauan and Chamorro are instead outliers on the Sunda-Sulawesi branch of the Austronesian language family, though it has been claimed that Palauan constitutes a possibly independent branch of the Malayo-Polynesian languages (Dyen 1965). The Palauan language is widely used in day-to-day life in Palau.
The phonemic inventory of Palauan consists of 10 consonants and 6 vowels.Phonetic charts of the vowel and consonant phonemes are provided below, utilizing the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
While the phonemic inventory of Palauan is relatively small, comparatively, many phonemes contain at least two allophones that surface as the result of various phonological processes within the language. The full phonetic inventory of consonants is given below in IPA (the phonemic inventory of vowels, above, is complete).
Palauan contains several diphthongs (sequences of vowels within a single syllable). A list of diphthongs and corresponding Palauan words containing them are given below, adapted from Zuraw (2003).
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