thumb|A Nauruan speaker, recorded in [[Taiwan]]

Nauruan or Nauru () is an Austronesian language, spoken natively in the island country of Nauru.

Dialects

According to a report published in 1937 in Sydney, Australia, there was a diversity of dialects until Nauru became a colony of Germany in 1888 and the first texts in Nauruan began to be published. The varieties were so divergent that people from different districts often had problems understanding each other completely. With the increasing influence of foreign languages and the rise in the number of Nauruan texts, the dialects blended into a standardized language, which was promoted through dictionaries and translations by Alois Kayser and Philip Delaporte.

Today there is significantly less dialectal variation. In the district of Yaren and the surrounding area there is an eponymous dialect spoken, which is only slightly different from other varieties.

Phonology

Consonants

Nauruan has 16–17 consonant phonemes. Nauruan makes phonemic contrasts between velarized and palatalized labial consonants. Velarization is not apparent before long back vowels and palatalization is not apparent before non-low front vowels.

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

|-

|+Consonant phonemes

! colspan="2" rowspan="2" |

! colspan="2" |Bilabial

! rowspan="2" |Dental

! colspan="3" |Dorsal

|-

!<small>palatalized</small>

!<small>velarized</small>

!<small>Palatal</small>

!<small>post-velar</small>

!<small>labial</small>

|-

! colspan="2" | Nasal

| || || || || ||

|-

! rowspan="2" |Stop ||<small>voiceless</small>

| || || || || ||

|-

!<small>voiced</small>

| || || || || ||

|-

! colspan="2" |Fricative

| || || || || ||()

|-

! colspan="2" |Approximant

|

|

|

|

|

|

|-

! colspan="2" |Rhotic

| || || || || ||

|}

Voiceless stops are geminated and nasals also contrast in length. Dental stops and become and respectively before high front vowels.

The approximants become fricatives in "emphatic pronunciation". transcribes them as and but also remarks that they contrast with the non-syllabic allophones of the high vowels. can also be heard as a fricative .

Depending on stress, may be a flap or a trill. The precise phonetic nature of is unknown. transcribes it as and speculates that it may pattern like palatalized consonants and be partially devoiced.

Between a vowel and word-final , an epenthetic appears.

Stress

Stress is on the penultimate syllable when the final syllable ends in a vowel, on the last syllable when it ends in a consonant, and initial with reduplications. The dictionary is small (10.5 × 14&nbsp;cm), with 65 pages devoted to the glossary and an additional dozen to phrases, arranged alphabetically by the German. Approximately 1650 German words are glossed in Nauruan, often by phrases or synonymous forms. There are some 1300 'unique' Nauruan forms in the glosses, including all those occurring in phrases, ignoring diacritical marks. The accents used there are not common; just one accent (the tilde) is in use today.

Vocabulary

{| class="wikitable"

!Nauruan

!English

|-

|

|night

|-

|

|day

|-

|

|ancestor

|-

|

|hello/greeting/welcome

|-

|

|water

|-

|

|Earth; celestial sphere

|-

|

|God

|-

|

|heaven

|-

|

|light

|-

|

|peace

|-

|

|darkness

|-

|

|beginning

|-

|

|goodbye

|-

|/mo awe？

|How are you?

|}

Sample text

The following example of text is from the Bible (Genesis, 1.1–1.8):

<sup>1</sup> <sup>2</sup> <sup>3</sup> <sup>4</sup> <sup>5</sup> <sup>6</sup> <sup>7</sup> <sup>8</sup>

This text demonstrates a few of the German loanwords (e.g. , "God"; and , "celestial sphere") in Nauruan, which is traced back to the strong influence of German missionaries.

References

Bibliography

  • "Nauru Grammar", by Alois Kayser compiled (1936); distributed by the German embassy 1993,

Further reading

  • Nauruan Wiktionary