On Rapanui people speak Rapanui. You might argue, if the text rolls on
like this, you hardly find any interest to read it. But actually, Rapanui is
interesting.
If you think, it’s written in the Rongorongo script. No, at least not
nowadays.
It is spoken by only 2500-3500 people, and some might not speak it
fluently as they might use more Castellano (Spanish) [1]. Rapanui belongs to
the east Polynesian group and is thus related to Tahitian, Rarotongan, Maori,
and others. As Easter Island is isolated, there hasn’t been interchange with other
members of the groups, except during the 19th century, when people
had been transferred for a time to Tahiti. So, today’s Rapanui has a good deal
of loan words from Tahitian.
Rapanui is written in the Latin script 5 vowels: (a, e, i, o, u) and 10 consonants (h, k, m, n, ng, p, r, t, v and ‘ –
the glottal stop). Ng is usually written ŋ. [2]
An interesting feature of the Rapanui grammar is the dual [3]. For the
first person there exist forms for singular, dual and plural. And moreover dual
and plural have distinct forms for inclusion and exclusion. If you are
interested in Rapanui Grammar, please read the thesis of Paulus Kieviet. You’ll
find lots of examples and an introduction to the island as well the history of
the language.
There are hints, that the Spanish language changes Rapanui. The normal
word order would be verb, subject, object, but people found a shift to the
Spanish (or better Indo-European) word order: subject, verb, object. Here’s an
example of two versions of the same phrase:
1.) he ‘aroha, he tatangi ararua (as spoken in 1948)
2.) ararua he ‘aroha he tatangi (as spoken in 2001) [2].
I have looked at words in different Polynesian languages for similarities
and dissimilarities. I’m far from compiling a “Very Basic Guide” to Rapanui. But here are the words I’ve looked up in
different dictionaries.
Rapanui
|
Englisch
|
Tahitian
|
Maori
|
Rarotongan etc.
|
hare
|
house
|
fare
|
wharenui
|
‘are’are
|
henua
|
Earth, world, land
|
fenua
|
ao
|
‘enua
|
ʻiorana
|
hello
|
ia orana
|
kia ora
|
‘aro
|
ina
|
no
|
‘aima
|
ehee
|
‘āita
|
mahina
|
moon
|
marama
|
mahina
|
marama
|
maururu
|
thanks
|
maaururu
|
tena koe
|
'akameitaki
|
raʻā
|
sun
|
raa
|
ra
|
raa
|
rangi
|
Sky, cloud
|
ra‘i
|
rangi [?]
|
rangi
|
rivariva
|
good
|
maita'i
|
papai
|
meitaki
|
tangata
|
man
|
ta'ata
|
tane
|
tangata
|
tapu
|
Holy, taboo
|
tapu
|
tapu
|
tapu
|
vai kava
|
Ocean, lake
|
moana
|
moana
|
moana
|
vahine
|
woman
|
vahine
|
wahine
|
va‘ine
|
Rapanui is interesting and we’ll talk more about the history of this
Polynesian language, when we’ll have a closer look at the Kohau Rongorongo.
Links and References:
[3] Paulus Kieviet: A grammar of Rapa Nui http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/124
.
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