Talk:Teraina

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Does any on know what language they speak at Teraina? Or rather, what language they spoke in the 1500?

Currently I would say they speak Gilbertese and perhaps English. I do not believe this island was inhabited continuously until the end of last century. -Henry W. Schmitt 03:32, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Without going into too much detail, more likely Eastern Polynesian languages (Marquesic or Tahitic) than Gilbertese. Because for the Gilbertese, Kiribati was about as far east as they ever got, and we know that there was some movement between Hawai'i and SE Polynesia around (very roughly) 1200 and intermittent contact later on. Such (Polynesian) travellers might have found the island a good provisioning stopover. There may or may not have been long-term settlement; all we know that the island was devoid of humans at Western contact.

It is conspicuous that of the three Teraina landbirds known in historic times, one (the reed-warbler) is a Kiribati endemic; another (the now-extinct duck) probably evolved "very recently" (in evolutionary time) from vagrants (this may be studied by ancient DNA analysis). The third, Rimatara Lorikeet, was introduced by pre-contact seafarers from SE Polynesia; it is almost impossible that the birds were traded all the way to Micronesia and then introduced by Gilbertese. Apart from these 3 taxa, there are no land birds on this island which offers enough habitat - and that is usually a pretty good sign of pre-contact settlement.

The question is likely to be ultimately answered, because Teraina is of considerable archaeological interest and sooner or later, someone will do fieldwork there.

So at present the answer to your question would be "probably some East Polynesian language, maybe Gilbertese, but there was no lasting pre-contact settlement." Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 17:07, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How to get there?

Does someone know how to get there nowadays? Sounds interesting for the article! Belgian man (talk) 10:07, 11 June 2008 (UTC)