Marshallese language

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Marshallese
Kajin M̧ajeļ or Kajin Majõl
Spoken in: Marshall Islands, Nauru
Total speakers: 43,900 (1979)
Language family: Austronesian
 Malayo-Polynesian
  Oceanic
   Central-Eastern
    Micronesian
     Micronesian Proper
      Marshallese 
Official status
Official language of: Marshall Islands (with English)
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: mh
ISO 639-2: mah
ISO/FDIS 639-3: mah
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

The Marshallese language (Marshallese: Kajin M̧ajeļ or Kajin Majõl ) or Ebon is a Malayo-Polynesian language of the Marshall Islands.

Contents

[edit] Sounds

[edit] Consonants

Marshallese has 22 consonants (five of which are written with digraphs), plus a supplementary velar central approximant consonant (often not written in the current orthography):

Primary Bilabial Dental Palatal Velar
Secondary palatalized velarized palatalized velarized labialized   velarized labialized
Nasal m /mʲ/ m̧ /mˠ/ n /n̪ʲ/ ņ /n̪ˠ/ ņw /n̪ˠʷ/   n̄ /ŋ/ n̄w /ŋʷ/
Stop (occlusive) p /pʲ/ b /bˠ/ j /t̪ʲ/ t /t̪ˠ/     k /k/ kw /kʷ/
Rhotic (fricative)   r /r̪ʲ/ d /r̪ˠ/ dw /r̪ˠʷ/    
Approximant lateral   l /l̪ʲ/ ļ /l̪ˠ/ ļw /l̪ˠʷ/    
central     y /j/ h or ʔ /ɰ/ w /w/
  • Marshallese has a number of consonants with contrasting secondary articulations:
    • palatalized consonants
    • velarized consonants
    • labialized-velarized consonants
    • (note that central approximants in the table above actually have a single articulation)
  • The velarized bilabial stop is phonetically voiced.

[edit] Vowels

Marshallese has 4 vowel phonemes each with several allophones:

Marshallese vowel Simple realisations Main orthographies
height phoneme unrounded rounded unrounded rounded
front back front back
High (close) /ɨ/ [i] [ɯ] [u] i u
Upper Mid (near-close) /ɘ/ [ɪ] [ɤ]
(long)		 [ʊ] i (or ę) o ū (or ü)
Lower Mid (open-mid) /ɜ/ [e] [ʌ]
(short)		 [o] e o̧ (or o̠) ō (or ü)
Low (open) /ɐ/ [ɛ] [ɑ] [ɔ] a ā (or ä)

Marshallese vowels are not specified along the front-back and rounded-unrounded dimensions, but on the height and ATR dimensions (see the IPA classification of vowels in the table on the right). This means that a given vowel phoneme will have several different phonetic realizations.

For example, the high vowel phoneme /ɨ/ may alternately be pronounced as [i], [ɯ], [u], [i͡ɯ], [i͡u], [ɯ͡i], [ɯ͡u], [u͡i], [u͡ɯ], depending on the context:

  • Specifically, vowels next to palatized consonants become front unrounded ([i], [ɪ], [e], [ɛ]),
  • vowels next to velarized consonants become back unrounded ([ɯ], [ɤ], [ʌ], [ɑ]),
  • and vowels next to labialized consonants become back rounded ([u], [ʊ], [o], [ɔ]).
  • When between two consonants of different types (e.g., a velarized consonant and a labialized consonant), the vowels become diphthongs, beginning with the surface form found next to the preceding consonant, and ending with the surface form found next to the following consonant (e.g., in the case of a vowel between a velarized and labialized consonant, the diphthongs would be [ɯ͡u], [ɤ͡ʊ], [ʌ͡o], [ɑ͡ɔ]:
Consonants
secondary
articulations		 palatalized
(m,p,n,j,r,l,y)
/Cʲ_Cʲ/		 velarized
(m̧,b,ņ,t,d,ļ,h)
/Cˠ_Cˠ/		 labialized
(ņw,dw,ļw,n̄w,kw,w)
/Cˠʷ_Cˠʷ/		 palatalized-
velarized
/Cʲ_Cˠ/		 velarized-
palatalized
/Cˠ_Cʲ/		 velarized-
labialized
/Cˠ_Cˠʷ/		 labialized-
velarized
/Cˠʷ_Cˠ/		 palatalized-
labialized
/Cʲ_Cˠʷ/		 labialized-
palatalized
/Cˠʷ_Cʲ/
Vowel
realisation		 front
unrounded		 back
unrounded		 back
rounded		 front and back
unrounded		 back
rounded and unrounded		 complex
Phoneme simple vowel allophones diphthong allophones
i,u /ɨ/
(close)		 [i] [ɯ] [u] [i͡ɯ] [ɯ͡i] [ɯ͡u] [u͡ɯ] [i͡u] [u͡i]
i(ę),o,ū /ɘ/
(near-close)		 [ɪ] [ɤ] [ʊ] [ɪ͡ɤ] [ɤ͡ɪ] [ɤ͡ʊ] [ʊ͡ɤ] [ɪ͡ʊ] [ʊ͡ɪ]
e,o̧,ō /ɜ/
(open-mid)		 [e] [ʌ] [o] [e͡ʌ] [ʌ͡e] [ʌ͡o] [o͡ʌ] [e͡o] [o͡e]
a,ā /ɐ/
(open)		 [ɛ] [ɑ] [ɔ] [ɛ͡ɑ] [ɑ͡ɛ] [ɑ͡ɔ] [ɔ͡ɑ] [ɛ͡ɔ] [ɔ͡ɛ]

[edit] Syllable & phonotactics

[edit] Stress

[edit] Orthography

Marshallese underwent a change of orthography in recent times. However, most people still use the old orthography. It is written in a form of the Latin alphabet with unusual diacritic combinations. There are different alphabetic systems in use by Marshallese speakers depending on religious affiliation.

Here is the (current) alphabet (note that letters with a macron are usually represented with a tilde in printed texts, eg, ō becomes õ):

Base letter Phonology   Letter with cedilla Phonology   Letter with macron Phonology
a A /ɐ/ [ɛ]
/ɐ/ [ɑ]		   ā (or ä) Ā (or Ä) /ɐ/ [ɔ]
b B /bˠ/    
d D /r̪ˠ/    
e E /ɜ/ [e]    
i I /ɨ/ [i]
/ɘ/ [ɪ]		    
j (or y)[citation needed] J (or Y)[citation needed] /j/ [ʒ]
/j/ [j][citation needed]		    
k K /k/    
l L /l̪ʲ/ ļ (or ł) Ļ (or Ł) /l̪ˠ/  
m M /mʲ/ m̧ (or m̠) M̧ (or M̠) /mˠ/  
n N /n̪ʲ/ ņ (or n̠) Ņ (or N̠) /n̪ˠ/ n̄ (or ñ or ŋ) N̄ (or Ñ or Ŋ) /ŋ/
o O /ɘ/ [ɤ] (long) o̧ (or o̠) O̧ (or O̠) /ɜ/ [ʌ] (short) ō (or ö) Ō (or Ö) /ɜ/ [o]
p P /pʲ/    
r R /r̪ʲ/    
t T /t̪ˠ/    
u U /ɨ/ [ɯ]
/ɨ/ [u]		   ū (or ü) Ū (or Ü) /ɘ/ [ʊ]
w W /w/
/ˠʷ/		    

Sometimes, the unusual combinations of letters with combining macrons are replaced by vowels with diaeresis and by ñ/Ñ (or by an ŋ/Ŋ letter), and the combining cedilla is replaced by ł/Ł, or underlined letters (or letters with combining macron below).

Finally, the velar approximant /ɰ/ may be seen written as h/H or ʔ (adding one more letter to the alphabet). And some orthographies make distinctions between allophones of the same palatal central approximant /j/ phoneme, i.e. between j/J [ʒ] and y/Y [j] (adding another letter to the alphabet).[citation needed]

[edit] Grammar

One Marshallese word is yokwe, which means both hello and good-bye. It also means love. (Compare Hawaiian aloha.) This word may also be written iakwe and io̧kwe.

[edit] Spelling

Marshallese spelling is highly variable. Not only are there multiple orthographies in common use, but spelling is inconsistent within an orthography. For example, ejjelok (no or not) is sometimes spelled ejelok and aoleb is sometimes spelled aolep.

[edit] Text examples

[edit] Modern orthography

Here is the Hail Mary in Marshallese Unicode. Compare with this scanned image to see how it should look with all the diacritics in place.

Io̧kwe eok Maria, kwo lōn̄ kōn
menin jouj;
Irooj ej pād ippam̧.
Kwo jeram̧m̧an iaan kōrā raņ im
ejeram̧m̧an ineen lo̧jiōm̧, Jesus.
O Maria kwojarjar, jinen Anij,
kwōn jar kōn kem rijjerawiwi.
Kiiō im ilo iien
amwōj mej. Amen.

[edit] Older orthography

Here is the Lord's Prayer as given in the 1982 Marshallese Bible, which uses the older orthography (most commonly used today).

Jememuij iljõñ:
En kwojarjar im utiej etam;
En itok am Ailiñ;
Kimin kõmõnmõn ankilam ilõl einwõt air kõmmõn ilõn.
Letok ñõn kim kijim rainin.
Jolok amuij bwid ibbam,
Einwõt kimij julok bwid ko an ro jet ibbem.
Am melejjoñe kim en jab ellã jen joñan,
Ak kwon kejbarok kim jen Eo Enana.
[Bwe am Ailiñ im kajur im aibuijuij indrio, Amen.]

[edit] External links

Wikipedia
Marshallese language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Bibliography

  • Bender, Byron W. (1968). Marshallese phonology. Oceanic Linguistics, 7, 16-35.
  • Bender, Byron W. (1969). Spoken Marshallese. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
  • Bender, Byron W. (1969). Vowel dissimulation in Marshallese. In Working papers in linguistics (No. 11, pp. 88-96). University of Hawaii.
  • Bender, Byron W. 1973. Parallelisms in the morphophonemics of several Micronesian languages. Oceanic Linguistics, 12, 455-477.
  • Choi, John D. (1992). Phonetic underspecification and target interpolation: An acoustic study of Marshallese vowel allophony. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics (No. 82).
  • Hale, Mark. (2000). Marshallese phonology, the phonetics-phonology interface and historical linguistics. The Linguistic Review, 17, 241-257.
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