The official
languages of French Polynesia are French and
Tahitian. Each island group has its own language,
e.g. Tuamotuan in the Tuamotus and Marquesan
in the Marquesas.
These languages,
together with Tahitian, are East Polynesian
languages and members of the vast Austronesian
language family.
Tahitian's closest
relatives include Hawaiian, Maori, Marquesan
and Tuamotuan; other Polynesian languages
such as Samoan and Tongan are also quite closely
related. The relationship of these Polynesian
languages to many Micronesian and Melanesian
languages, such as Fijian, is more remote
but still evident, as is the affiliation of
all the above to the enormous Austronesian
(or "Malayo-Polynesian") language
family which encompasses most languages of
Oceania, Indonesia (e.g. Malay), the Philippines
(e.g. Tagalog), Madagascar (Malagasy) and
Taiwan, which together number in the thousands,
making this one of the world's most important
language families.
Because of the
way the Tahitian language is pronounced, it
is generally easier for Americans to pronounce
Tahitian words than it is for them to pronounce
words in French. Unlike French or English,
there are no confusing rules about how words
are pronounced. In Tahitian, each letter has
a certain sound and that sound remains the
same, no matter what the combination of letters.
Before
the arrival of the missionaries in the 1700's,
the Tahitian language had never been written.
The missionaries took the sounds of the language
and matched them to letters in our alphabet.
As a result, only 16 letters are used: five
vowels, A, E, I, O, U; and eleven consonants,
B, F, G, H, K, M, N, P, R, T, V.
The vowels follow these rules for pronunciation:
A pronounced
ah as in father
E pronounced ay as in may
I pronounced ee as in be
O pronounced oh as in no
U pronounced oo as in rude |
Pronunciation
of the consonants is that same as for English.
Every syllable
in the Tahitian language ends in a vowel. There
are no silent letters. There are never two consonants
together without a vowel between them, but it
is quite common for 2 or 3 vowels to be grouped
together. In this case, each vowel would be
a separate syllable and would be clearly pronounced.
There are times when it sounds as though each
syllable isn't being pronounced for some words
because, as in most languages, syllables are
frequently slurred together.
The only difficult
part of pronunciation in Tahitian is the glottal
catch. This is when two vowels are separated
by an apostrophe, such as in the name of the
town, Faa'a. It is the only characteristic that
people seem to have trouble with. But it is
an important characteristic, because the break
can change the meaning of a word entirely.
Take, for example,
the Tahitian word hoe, which means paddle or
row. By adding an apostrophe, ho'e, the word
becomes one, as in the number. Hoe would be
smoothly pronounced ho-ay. Ho'e would be pronounced
the same way, phonetically, but with a hesitation
after the first syllable, kind of like having
someone lightly punch you in the stomach at
the end of the ho.
Another aspect
of the language comes from the early contact
with the missionaries. There are many Tahitian
words that sound very similar to English, such
as Tenuare, pronounced ten-oo-ah-ray, which
means January, or Fepuare (feh-poo-ah-ray),
which is February.
Some
Tahitian Words
| Motu |
small
islet on the reef |
| Oa oa |
happy |
| Papeete |
water basket
|
| Pareu |
two meters
of cloth worn in as many ways as you can
imagine |
| Tamaaraa |
Tahitian
feast |
| Tamure |
famous hip
swinging dance |
| Fiu |
fed-up |
| Maohi |
Tahitian
person |
| Fénua |
the country,
the land |
| Tiaré |
flower |
| Vahiné |
woman |
| Tané |
man |
| Ma'a |
food |
| Papé |
water |
| Pia |
beer |
| Tabu |
forbidden
|
Click
here for Phrases
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