Rapa language
| Rapa | |
|---|---|
| Reo Rapa; Reo Oparo | |
| Native to | French Polynesia |
|
Native speakers
|
|
|
Austronesian
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | rapa1245 |
Rapa (or Rapan; autonym Reo Rapa or Reo Oparo) is the language of Rapa, in the Austral Islands of French Polynesia. It is an East Central Polynesian language, along with the Marquesic and Tahitic languages. There are three current versions on the Rapa Language currently being spoken: Old Rapa, Reo Rapa, and New Rapa. Old Rapa is not a language commonly spoken and has been replaced by Reo Rapa. The Reo Rapa language is a mix of the more commonly spoken Tahitian language and Old Rapa. New Rapa is commonly spoken amongst the middle aged and the younger community. Rapa is a critically endangered language with around 300 speakers of Reo Rapa, with only 15% of those speakers able to speak Old Rapa.
Reo Rapa as a language was created, not simply by incorporating lexical terms from Tahitian to Old Rapa, but from bilingualism and language shift due to the dominance of Tahitian. While Reo Rapa is a mix of Tahitian and Old Rapa, speakers can generally tell if the words they are speaking is sourced from Tahitian or Old Rapa due to phonemes absent in one language and present in the other. Based on the phonological form, speakers of Reo Rapa are aware that certain words they speak belong to Old Rapa or Tahitian. For instance, velar nasal sounds such as /ng/ and velar stop sounds like /k/ are not present in Tahitian but are in Old Rapa.
Reo Rapa is not a koine language, where the language is created due to interaction between two groups speaking mutually intelligible languages. Contact between Old Rapa and Tahitian speakers was indirect and never prolonged, which is also a requirement to be called a koine language. Reo Rapa was the result of a completely monolingual community that shifted as a whole to the more dominant Tahitian Language, thus creating a bilingual community, which eventually created Reo Rapa. Therefore, it is crucial to note that Reo Rapa should not be confused with the Rapa Nui language. The language is sufficiently different from the rest of the Austral languages to be considered a separate language.
...
Wikipedia