Tahitianization is a term used to describe a situation where the

Tahitian language Tahitian (autonym: , , part of , , languages of French Polynesia) correspond to "languages of natives from French Polynesia", and may in principle designate any of the seven indigenous languages spoken in French Polynesia. The Tahitian language s ...

influences on other nearby

Polynesian 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 Austr ...

. The phenomenon is most prevalent in the French Polynesia, but is not limited to that area alone. One notable factor in the process of tahitianization was the fact that when king

Pōmare II Pōmare II (c. 1782 – 7 December 1821) (fully Tu Tunuieaiteatua Pōmare II or in modern orthography Tū Tū-nui-ʻēʻa-i-te-atua Pōmare II; historically misspelled as Tu Tunuiea'aite-a-tua), was the second king of Tahiti between 1782 and 182 ...

converted into

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

and later started to spread the new religion into other communities near Tahiti. In French Polynesia, the lesser-spoken languages are exposed to the tahitianization. This has influenced on the vitality of

Mangareva language Mangareva, Mangarevan ( autonym , ; in French ) is a Polynesian language spoken by about 600 people in the Gambier Islands of French Polynesia (especially the largest island Mangareva) and by Mangarevians emigrants on the islands of Tahiti and M ...

. Also, the

Tuamotuan language Tuamotuan, Paumotu or Paumotu (Tuamotuan: ' or ') is a Polynesian language spoken by 4,000 people in the Tuamotu archipelago, with an additional 2,000 speakers in Tahiti. The Pa‘umotu people today refer to their islands as Tuamotu while refer ...

has been greatly influenced by the Tahitian language. Out of all the languages in the French Polynesia, the languages of North Marquesan and South Marquesan have best managed to evade tahitianization. The

Rapa Nui language Rapa Nui or Rapanui (, Rapa Nui: , Spanish: ), also known as Pascuan () or ''Pascuense'', is an Eastern Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family. It is spoken on Easter Island, also known as ''Rapa Nui''. The island is home to ...

in the

Easter Island Easter Island (, ; , ) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is renowned for its nearly 1,000 extant monumental statues, ...

has also been influenced by the Tahitian language, since many speakers moved into Tahiti at the start of the 19th century. The returning Rapa Nui brought many Tahitian influences with them: almost ten percent out of a word list of a little over 5,800 were from Tahitian.{{Cite book , last=Kieviet , first=Paulus , title=A grammar of Rapa Nui , publisher=Language Science Press , year=2017 , isbn=9783946234753 , pages=15-16

References

Tahitian language Language contact