Yapese is an

Austronesian language The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken b ...

in the Oceanic branch spoken on the

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

of Yap, in the

Federated States of Micronesia The Federated States of Micronesia (, abbreviated FSM), or simply Micronesia, is an island country in Micronesia, a region of Oceania. The federation encompasses the majority of the Caroline Islands (excluding Palau) and consists of four Admin ...

. It has been difficult to classify the language further, but Yapese may prove to be one of the Admiralty Islands languages. The Yapese language refers to the language spoken specifically on the Yap Main Islands, and does not include the Chuukic languages spoken in the Yap Neighboring Islands: Ulithian, Woleaian, and Satawalese (and to an extent, Nguluwan).

Orthography

Written Yapese uses the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

. In Yapese spelling as practiced until the 1970s, the glottal stop was not written with an explicit character. A word-final glottal stop was represented by doubling the final vowel letter.

Glottalization Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice (partial closure). Glottalization of obstruent cons ...

of consonants was represented with an apostrophe. In the 1970s an orthography was created which uses double vowel letters to represent long vowels; and because of the ambiguity that would occur if the glottal stop was not written, the glottal stop was written with the letter ''q''. This new orthography using the letter ''q'' is not in universal use, but many works and maps about Yap write place names using the new q-orthography. For example: before the introduction of the new 1970s orthography, the indigenous name of the Yap Main Islands was (and still is) spelled ''Waab'', where the glottal stop is assumed to be between the double vowel letters. After the 1970s orthography, the name was then officially changed to ''Waqaab'' to differentiate between the two ''a'' vowels (first one being a short vowel and the second one being a long vowel) before and after the ''q'' glottal stop. The newer orthography was then taught in the public education system at the elementary levels; however, due to the differing preferences of spelling by the older and newer generations, it became hard to standardize Yapese spelling. Contemporarily, ''Waqaab'' is still spelled in the older spelling, as well as some other forms to compromise for the generational differences, e.g. ''Waqab'' and ''Waʼab''. A general rule developed organically over time especially when it came to the introduction of the more-widely accepted apostrophe ''ʼ'' as a glottal stop. If the glottal stop is between vowels or at the ending (or start) of a word with a vowel, then a ''q'' will be used; if the glottal stop is next to or between consonants, then an apostrophe may be used.

Phonology

Apart from a couple grammatical forms which are V, syllables are CV or CVC.

Consonants

Yapese is one of the relatively few languages in the world with ejective

fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in ...

s. The Yapese ejective consonants are . There are also glottalized nasals and approximants . In the table below, each

phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...

is listed to the left of the

grapheme In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived from Ancient Greek ('write'), and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other emic units. The study of graphemes ...

that represents it in Yapese orthography. and only occur in English and Japanese loans. does occur in native words.

Vowels

In the table below, each phoneme is listed to the left of the grapheme that represents it in Yapese orthography.

Grammar

Morphology

Reduplication

Yapese makes use of

reduplication In linguistics, reduplication is a Morphology (linguistics), morphological process in which the Root (linguistics), root or Stem (linguistics), stem of a word, part of that, or the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The cla ...

for several morphological functions, including deriving stative adjectives from inchoative adjectives, as in (1a–b), as well as to make

diminutive A diminutive is a word obtained by modifying a root word to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment, and sometimes to belittle s ...

s of verbs, as in (2a-b):

Pronouns

Yapese distinguishes between three

numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

(singular, dual, and plural) and three

persons A person (: people or persons, depending on context) is a being who has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such ...

(first, second, and third), as well as

clusivity In linguistics, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between ''inclusive'' and ''exclusive'' first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called ''inclusive " we"'' and ''exclusive "we"''. Inclusive "we" specifically includes the address ...

in its personal pronouns. A Yapese Talking Dictionary was produced by Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages.

References

Bibliography

*Jensen, John Thayer. 1977. Yapese–English Dictionary. (PALI Language Texts: Micronesia.) Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.

External links

Yapese Wordlist at the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database

Yapese Talking Dictionary
* Chepin yuu Waqab ('Events on Yap'). Yapese-language vernacular reader * Yaat nu Waqab ('Tales of Yap'). A Yapese-language vernacular reader * Thaaboeg (this title is a man's name). A Yapese-language vernacular reader * Written materials about Yapese plants and animals archived with Kaipuleohone * Index cards of plant and animal names, labeled 'Carolines nimals' and index cards of plant and animal names, labeled 'Carolines lants' * Paradisec has two collections of

Arthur Capell Arthur Capell (28 March 1902 – 10 August 1986) was an Australian linguist, who made major contributions to the study of Australian languages, Austronesian languages and Papuan languages. Early life Capell was born in Newtown, New South W ...

's materials
AC1AC2
, which include Yapese language materials * Paradisec ha
an open access collection of Yapese texts and a dictionary
from John Jensen {{Oceania topic, Languages of Yap Oceanic languages Languages of the Federated States of Micronesia