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).

Alphabet

{|class="wikitable"

|+ 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 or the turned apostrophe 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.

{| class="wikitable"

|+ Verbal Phrase

!colspan=2| 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.

{| class="wikitable"

|+Nominal Phrase Markers

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 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.

{| class=wikitable style="text-align: center"

! !! colspan=3|North Marquesan !! colspan=2|South Marquesan !! Hawaiian !! Tahitian

|-

! !! Nuku Hiva !! Ua Pou !! Ua Huka !! Hiva Oa !! Fatu Hiva !! Hawaii !! Tahiti

|-

| hello || || || || || || || <br/><small>( 'love, compassion')</small>

|-

| human being || || || || || || ||

|-

| life || || || || || || ||

|-

| body || || || || || || ||

|-

| mouth || || || || || || ||

|-

| head || || || || || || ||

|-

| to see || || || || || || ||

|-

| to speak || || || || || || <br/><small>( 'to tell tales')</small> ||

|-

| dog || || || || || || ||

|-

| louse || || || || || || ||

|-

| yesterday || || || || || || ||

|-

| sky || || || || || || ||

|-

| moon || || || || || || ||

|-

| wind || || || || || || ||

|-

| sea || || || || || || || <br/><small>( 'sea, salt')</small>

|-

| coral || || || || || || <br/><small>( 'plaster, mortar')</small> ||

|-

| fish || || || || || || ||

|-

| octopus || || || || || || ||

|-

| island, land || || || || || || ||

|-

| river || || || || || || ||

|-

| taro || || || || || || ||

|-

| coconut || || || || || || ||

|-

| house || || || || || || ||

|-

| man (male) || || || || || || ||

|-

| woman || || || || || || ||

|-

| grandmother || <br/><small>('grandparent mother')</small> || /<br/><small>('grandparent mother')</small> || <br/><small>('grandparent mother')</small> || <br/><small>('grandparent woman')</small> || <br/><small>('grandparent woman')</small> || <br/><small>('grandparent woman')</small> || <br/><small>('mom old person')</small>

|-

| chief, king || || || || || || ||

|-

| traditional temple<br>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

<section begin="list-of-glossing-abbreviations"/><div style="display:none;">

DIR:directional

</div><section end="list-of-glossing-abbreviations"/>

Further reading

  • Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum Bulletins.
  • Online version of the Grammaire et dictionnaire de la langue des Iles Marquises – Marquisien–Français (Paris, Institut d'Ethnologie, 1931)
  • 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)
  • DoBeS — Marquesan language
  • Box of 458 index cards of plant and animal names archived with Kaipuleohone