Kiribati Languages

Description
The people of Kiribati speak Gilbertese, an Oceanic language. English is the other official language, but is not used very often outside the island capital of South Tarawa. It is more likely that some English is mixed in its use with Gilbertese. Older generations of I-Kiribati tend to use more complicated versions of the language. Several words in Gilbertese have been adopted from European settlers, for instance, kamea is one of the Gilbertese words for dog, kiri being the Oceanic one which has its origins in the I-Kiribati people hearing the European settlers saying "come here" to their dogs, and adopting that as kamea.

Many other loanwords have been adopted (like buun, spoon, moko, smoke, beeki, pig, batoro, bottle) but some typical Gilbertese words are quite common, even for European objects (like wanikiba, plane – the flying canoe, rebwerebwe, motorbike – for the motor noise, kauniwae, shoes – the cow for the feet).

Over 96% of the 110,000 people living in Kiribati declare themselves I-Kiribati and speak Gilbertese. Gilbertese is also spoken by most inhabitants of Nui (Tuvalu), Rabi Island (Fiji), and some other islands where I-Kiribati have been relocated (Solomon Islands, notably Choiseul Province; and Vanuatu), after the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme or emigrated (to New Zealand and Hawaii mainly).

Unlike some other languages in the Pacific region, the Gilbertese language is far from extinct, and most speakers use it daily. 97% of those living in Kiribati are able to read in Gilbertese, and 80% are able to read English.

Countries by number of Gilbertese speakers
 * 1) Kiribati, 110,000 (2015 census)
 * 2) Fiji, 5,300 cited 1988
 * 3) Solomon Islands, 4,870 cited 1999
 * 4) New Zealand, 2,115 cited 2013
 * 5) Nauru, 1,500, then 500 cited 2011
 * 6) Tuvalu, 870 cited 1987
 * 7) Vanuatu, 400
 * 8) Hawaii, 141 (2010 US census)

Alphabet and Pronunciation
The Gilbertese language is written in the Latin script, which was introduced in the 1860s when Hiram Bingham]] Jr, a Protestant missionary, first translated the Bible into Gilbertese. Previously, the language was unwritten. Long vowels and consonants are since Independence (1979) represented by doubling the character, and a few digraphs are used for the velar nasals (/ŋ ŋː/) and velarized bilabials (i.e. /pˠ mˠ/). Bingham Jr and the first Roman Catholic missionaries (1888) did not indicate in their script the vowel length by doubling the character. The discrepancies between Protestant and Roman Catholic spelling have been an issue since 1895. Neither clearly distinguished the pronunciation of the vowel /a/ after velarized bilabials, like /pˠ/ (bw) and /mˠ/ (mw), that result in discrepancies between old scripts and modern scripts. For example, the word maneaba should be written mwaneaba or even mwaaneaba and the atoll of Makin, Mwaakin. The Kiribati Protestant Church also recently used a different script for these two velarized bilabials, “b’a” and “m’a” forms are found in Protestant publications.

Language Aids and Dictionaries

 * Outlines of a grammar of the Gilbert Islands language
 * The structure of Gilbertese
 * Gilbertese, Samoan and English dictionary
 * A Gilbertese grammar and vocabulary
 * Simplified Gilbertese grammar
 * A Gilbertese-English dictionary
 * A vocabulary of English, Gilbertese, Ellice common usage

Additional Resources

 * KIRIBATI (Gilbertese) - COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE HANDBOOK