Tuvaluan language
| Tuvaluan | |
|---|---|
| Te Ggana Tuuvalu (southern dialects) Te Gagana Tuuvalu (northern dialects) |
|
| Native to | Tuvalu, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand |
|
Native speakers
|
10,000 in Tuvalu (2015) 2,000 in other countries (no date) |
|
Austronesian
|
|
| Official status | |
|
Official language in
|
 Tuvalu
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | tuva1244 |
Tuvaluan /tuːvəˈluːən/, often called Tuvalu, is a Polynesian language of or closely related to the Ellicean group spoken in Tuvalu. It is more or less distantly related to all other Polynesian languages, such as Hawaiian, Maori, Tahitian, Samoan, and Tongan, and most closely related to the languages spoken on the Polynesian Outliers in Micronesia and Northern and Central Melanesia. Tuvaluan has borrowed considerably from Samoan, the language of Christian missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The population of Tuvalu is approximately 10,837 people (2012 Population & Housing Census Preliminary Analytical Report) There are estimated to be more than 13,000 Tuvaluan speakers worldwide. In 2015 it was estimated that more than 3,500 Tuvaluans live in New Zealand, with about half that number born in New Zealand and 65 percent of the Tuvaluan community in New Zealand is able to speak Tuvaluan.
Like all other Polynesian languages, Tuvaluan descends from an ancestral language, which historical linguists refer to as "Proto-Polynesian", which was spoken perhaps about 2,000 years ago.
Tuvaluan has had significant contact with Gilbertese, a Micronesian language; Samoan; and, increasingly, English. Gilbertese is spoken natively on Nui, and was important to Tuvaluans when its colonial administration was located in the Gilbert Islands. Samoan was introduced by missionaries, and has had the most impact on the language. English’s influence has been limited, but is growing.
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Wikipedia