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 volcanic island in the province of Temotu in the southeastern part of Solomon Islands. It is one of the smallest permanently inhabited Polynesian islands. It is one of the Polynesian Outlier communities in Melanesia. Geograp ...

in the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...

. It is closely related to the

Tikopia language The Tikopia language, or Fakatikopia, 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; some linguists believe they are dialects ...

of the neighboring island of

Tikopia Tikopia is a volcanic island in Temotu Province, in the independent nation of Solomon Islands, southwestern Pacific Ocean. Although most of Solomon Islands is Melanesian, Tikopia is culturally Polynesian. Its remoteness has enabled much of its c ...

, 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 different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intelli ...

, 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 a company, business organization, or one of their operating units is transferred to or consolidated with another entity. They may happen through direct absorpt ...

s such as /f/ with /p/ and /s/ with /t/. * fafine → (women, female) * vasa → (open sea, ocean) * lahi → (big) The allophonic variation is one of the Tikopian influences. Vowels have a short and long form. The length of a vowel makes a difference in phonetics and meaning in Polynesian languages, and may be written with vowel gemination ⟨aa⟩ or with a macron above ⟨ā⟩. * (husband) vs. (elderly person) vs. (parent) * (man) vs. (men) vs. (brother-in-law) In other times, long vowels are to emphasis. * (great, extreme) → The stress in Anutan normally falls on the first syllable. The ''ākamana'' Polynesian syllabary for Anutan appears like this: : *⟨ŋ⟩ may be substituted by either ⟨ng⟩ or ⟨g⟩ for typographical reasons.

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 Austro ...

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''). Personal pronouns may also take different for ...

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

dual Dual or Duals may refer to: Paired/two things * Dual (mathematics), a notion of paired concepts that mirror one another ** Dual (category theory), a formalization of mathematical duality *** see more cases in :Duality theories * Dual number, a nu ...

, and

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

. 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. * ("who is it?") * ("it is I") Similar to personal pronouns,

possessive pronouns A possessive or ktetic form (abbreviated or ; from ; ) is a word or grammatical construction indicating a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ownership, or a number of other types of relation to a greater or les ...

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. * ("my brother) → ("my brothers") * ("your garden") → ("your gardens")

Verbs

Any of the verbs in Anutan can be used as a noun by attaching "te". Tense markers: * infinitive = * future = * present = * past indicative = * perfect = 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 making 'twenty' , 'thirty' and so forth. After tens, the number indicated in the tens are marked with meaning 'and'. Eleven would be meaning 'ten and one'. The same goes for twenty's, thirty's, etc. If the object of counting are humans the word will be placed in front of the number if it is enumerated. * = One man * = two men Counting fish would be marked with but is limited to ten or more. * = Ten fish * = Fifty-nine fish

Resources

A 200-word word list is available at the

Austronesian Austronesian may refer to: *The Austronesian languages *The historical Austronesian peoples The Austronesian people, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples who have settled in Taiwan, maritime Sout ...

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