The Anuta language (or ''Anutan'', locally ''te taranga paka-Anuta'') is a Polynesian

Outlier In statistics, an outlier is a data point that differs significantly from other observations. An outlier may be due to a variability in the measurement, an indication of novel data, or it may be the result of experimental error; the latter are ...

language from the island of

Anuta Anuta is a small high island in the southeastern part of the Solomon Islands province of Temotu, one of the smallest permanently inhabited Polynesian islands. It is one of the Polynesian Outlier communities in Melanesia. Geography The island ...

in the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capit ...

. It is closely related to the

Tikopia language The Tikopia language is a Polynesian Outlier language from the island of Tikopia in the Solomon Islands. It is closely related to the Anuta language of the neighboring island of Anuta. Tikopian is also spoken by the Polynesian minority on Vani ...

of the neighboring island of

Tikopia Tikopia is a high island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It forms a part of the Melanesian nation state of Solomon Islands but is culturally Polynesian. The first Europeans arrived on 22 April 1606 as part of the Spanish expedition of Pedro F ...

, and it bears significant cultural influence from the island. The two languages have a high degree of

mutual intelligibility In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as ...

, although Anutans can understand Tikopians better than the reverse. Anuta is generally regarded as Nuclear Polynesian language, although it bears considerable Tongic influence. In 1977, Richard Feinberg published a two-volume dictionary and basic grammar of the language.

Phonology

Anuta has an extremely small consonant inventory. This is as a result of several phoneme

merger Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspec ...

s such as /f/ with /p/ and /s/ with /t/. Vowels have a short and long form. * fafine → papine (women, female) * vasa → vata (open sea, ocean) * lahi → rai (big) The allophonic variation is one of the Tikopian influences. The length of a vowel makes a difference in phonetics in Polynesian languages. * matua (husband) vs. maatua (elderly person) vs. maatuaa (parent) * tangata (man) vs. taangata (men) vs. tangaata (brother-in-law) In other times, long vowels are to emphasis. * maatea (great, extreme) → maaatea The stress in Anutan normally falls on the first syllable. The full syllabary appears like this: :

Morphology

Anuta shows many morphological similarities with

Futunic languages The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family. There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austron ...

and are related to Polynesian morphology.

Grammar

Anuta follows the word order SVO. PAV (patient-verb-agent) ergative constructions are also common. Anuta distinguishes

personal pronouns Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...

into 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person and single, dual, and

plural The plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the ...

. Dual and plural 1st person are separated into exclusive and inclusive categories which depends on the words placement in the sentence. 2nd person pronouns should always be attached with either the particles ko, e, mo, or te. When the pronoun is standing alone, usually in a response of a question, it is attached with the particle ko. "Mea ko ai?" ("who is it?") "Ko au" ("it is I") Similar to personal pronouns,

possessive pronouns A possessive or ktetic form (abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict owne ...

are divided into 1st, 2nd and 3rd person, single, dual and plural. Dual and plural also being separated into exclusive and inclusive. However, whether the object is singular or plural will change the singular form of the pronouns. Two ways of possessive construction. One, the possessive pronoun is directly attached to the object or two, directly attached to the dual or plural forms. In singular possessive pronouns, when the object changes from singular to plural the /t/ drops. * "Toku taina" ("my brother) → "Oku taina" ("my brothers") * "Tou topi" ("your garden") → "Ou topi" ("your gardens")

Verbs

Any of the verbs in Anutan can be used as a noun by attaching "te". Tense markers: * infinitive = ke * future = ka * present = e * past indicative = ne * perfect = ku These tense markers may be attached to verbs without personal pronouns. Usually placed between the noun and the verb. If time is unimportant in the context of the sentence, tense markers will be dropped.

Numerals

Numbers in Anuta are usually with tense markers. Anutan use decimal counting systems. Tens use the same unit term "pua" making twenty "pua rua", thirty "pua toru" and so forth. After tens, the number indicated in the tens are marked with "maa" meaning "and". Eleven would be "puangapuru maa tai" meaning "ten and one". The same goes for twenty's, thirty's, etc. If the object of counting are humans the word "toko" will be placed in front of the number if it is enumerated. * Te tangata e tai = One man * Nga tangata e toko rua = two men Counting fish would be marked with "mata" but is limited to ten or more. * Te ika e matangapuru = Ten fish * Te ika e mata nima maa iva = Fifty-nine fish

Resources

A 200-word word list is available at the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database.

References

* Feinberg, Richard. 1977. ''The Anutan Language Reconsidered: Lexicon and Grammar of a Polynesian Outlier''. Two Volumes. HRAFlex Books. New Haven: Human Relations Area Files Press.

Notes

{{authority control Languages of the Solomon Islands Futunic languages