Gilbertese
Kiribati
Taetae ni Kiribati
Native to	Kiribati
Ethnicity	I-Kiribati
Native speakers	120,000 (2002–2019)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Micronesian Micronesian Proper Gilbertese
Writing system	Latin script (Gilbertese alphabet)
Official status
Official language in	Kiribati
Regulated by	Kiribati Language Board
Language codes
ISO 639-2	gil
ISO 639-3	gil
Glottolog	gilb1244
Map showing the pre-colonial distribution of the Micronesian languages; Gilbertese-speaking region is shaded blue and does not include the Line Islands and Rabi in Fiji
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Gilbertese or taetae ni Kiribati, also Kiribati (sometimes Kiribatese), is an Austronesian language spoken mainly in Kiribati. It belongs to the Micronesian branch of the Oceanic languages.

The word Kiribati, the current name of the islands, is the local adaptation of the European name "Gilberts" to Gilbertese phonology. Early European visitors, including Commodore John Byron, whose ships happened on Nikunau in 1765, had named some of the islands the Kingsmill or Kings Mill Islands or for the Northern group les îles Mulgrave in French^[2] but in 1820 they were renamed, in French, les îles Gilbert by Admiral Adam Johann von Krusenstern, after Captain Thomas Gilbert, who, along with Captain John Marshall, had passed through some of these islands in 1788. Frequenting of the islands by Europeans, Americans and Chinese dates from whaling and oil trading from the 1820s, when no doubt Europeans learnt to speak it, as Gilbertese learnt to speak English and other languages foreign to them. The first ever vocabulary list of Gilbertese was published by the French Revue coloniale (1847) by an auxiliary surgeon on corvette Le Rhin in 1845. His warship took on board a drift Gilbertese of Kuria, that they found near Tabiteuea. However, it was not until Hiram Bingham II took up missionary work on Abaiang in the 1860s that the language began to take on the written form known now.

Bingham was the first to translate the Bible into Gilbertese, and wrote several hymn books, a dictionary (1908, posthumous) and commentaries in the language of the Gilbert Islands. Alphonse Colomb, a French priest in Tahiti wrote in 1888, Vocabulaire arorai (îles Gilbert) précédé de notes grammaticales d'après un manuscrit du P. Latium Levêque et le travail de Hale sur la langue Tarawa / par le P. A. C.. Father Levêque named the Gilbertese Arorai (from Arorae) when Horatio Hale called them Tarawa. This work was also based on the first known description of Gilbertese in English, published in 1846, in the volume Ethnology and Philology of the U.S. Exploring Expedition, compiled by Horatio Hale.

The official name of the language is te taetae ni Kiribati, or 'the Kiribati language', but the common name is te taetae n aomata, or 'the language of the people'.

The first complete and comprehensive description of this language was published in Dictionnaire gilbertin–français of Father Ernest Sabatier (981 pp, 1952–1954), a Catholic priest. It was later partially translated into English by Sister Olivia, with the help of the South Pacific Commission.

Speakers

Over 96% of the 119,000 people living in Kiribati declare themselves I-Kiribati^[3] 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^[4] or emigrated (to New Zealand and Hawaii mainly).

97% of those living in Kiribati are able to read in Gilbertese, and 80% are able to read English.^[3] It is one of the Oceanic languages. The largest individual Oceanic languages are Eastern Fijian with over 600,000 speakers, and Samoan with an estimated 400,000 speakers. The Gilbertese, Tongan, Tahitian, Māori, Western Fijian and Tolai (Gazelle Peninsula) languages each have over 100,000 speakers.

In 2020 Finlayson Park School in Auckland became the first school in New Zealand to set up a Gilbertese language unit, where Erika Taeang was employed as the teacher.^[5][6]

Countries by number of Gilbertese speakers

1. Kiribati, 103,000 (2010 census)^[1]
2. Fiji, 6,600 (2019)^[1]
3. Solomon Islands, 6,800 (2012)^[1]
4. New Zealand, 2,196 (2018 New Zealand census)^[7]
5. Nauru, 1,500, then 500 cited 2011^[8]
6. Tuvalu, 100 (2002)^[1]
7. Vanuatu, 400^{[citation needed]}
8. Hawaii, 141 (2010 US census)

Linguistics and study

The Gilbertese language has two main dialects, Northern and Southern. Their main differences are in the pronunciation of some sounds. The islands of Butaritari and Makin also have their own dialect that differs from the standard Kiribati in some vocabulary and pronunciation.

Dialect listing

• Banaban (Banaba and Rabi Island, Fiji)
• Northern Kiribati (Makin, Butaritari, Marakei, Abaiang, Tarawa, Maiana, Kuria, Abemama and Aranuka)
  • Butaritari/Makin (Butaritari and Makin)
• Nuian (Tuvalu)
• Southern Kiribati (Tabiteuea, Onotoa, Nonouti, Beru, Nikunau, Tamana and Arorae)

Historical sound changes

¹ Sometimes when reflecting Proto-Micronesian /t/.
² Sometimes when reflecting Proto-Micronesian /k/.

Phonology

Gilbertese contrasts 13 consonants and 10 vowel sounds.^[10]

The /a/ pronunciation is closer to except after velarized /mˠ/ and /pˠ/.

Quantity is distinctive for vowels and plain nasal consonants but not for the remaining sounds so that ana /ana/ (third person singular article) contrasts with aana /aːna/ (transl. its underside) as well as anna /anːa/ (transl. dry land). Other minimal pairs include:^[12]

Grammar

Gilbertese has a basic verb–object–subject word order (VOS).

Nouns

Gilbertese lacks a morphological noun marker system. This means that—by itself—a noun cannot be identified as such. However, singular nouns can be distinguished from other words, as they are preceded by the article "te." Furthermore, not all singular nouns can take the article "te." These include names of people and places, words for cardinal directions, and other specific nouns.

Any noun can be formed from a verb or an adjective by preceding it with the article "te".

• nako (to go)
• te nako (the going)
• uraura (red)
• te uraura (the redness)

Nouns can be marked for possession (by person and number). Plurality is only marked in some nouns by lengthening the first vowel.^[16] Even then, the singular form might be used—despite plural referents—if no other indicators of their plurality are present.

• te boki (book)
• booki (books)

There is no obligatory marked gender. Sex or gender can be marked by adding mmwaane (male) or aiine (female) to the noun.

• te moa (chicken)
• te moa mmwaane (rooster) (writing mwane is more usual)
• te moa aiine (hen) (writing aine is more usual)
• tariu^[17] (my brother or my sister if he or she has the same sex of the speaker)
• maneu^[18] (my brother or my sister if he or she has a different sex of the speaker)

For human nouns, the linker 'n' may be used.

• ataei (child)
• ataeinimmwaane (boy)
• ataeinnaiine (girl)

Agentive nouns can be created with the particle tia (singular) or taan(i) (plural).^{[citation needed]}

In Gilbertese, nouns can be classified as either animate or inanimate. The category of animate nouns includes humans and most animals, whereas inanimate nouns refer to all other entities.

Possesion, when the possessor is inanimate, it is marked with the "n" clitic. In spelling, it may be joined with the previous word, or written separately. In cases where the "n" marker would be otherwise incompatible with the language's phonotactics, one might use "in" or "ni" instead. In phrases where the possessor is animate, a special possessive pronoun needs to be employed (see Pronouns).

Nouns can also be classified as alienable or inalienable. Inalienable nouns include, among others: parts of the body, family and feelings. Words which are newly introduced into a language are never considered to be inalienable. The meanings of certain words may vary according to whether or not they are considered alienable.

Adjectives can also be formed from nouns by reduplication with the meaning of “abundant in”, e.g., karau (“rain”), kakarau (“rainy”).

Articles

There are two articles used in Gilbertese:

Neither of them implies definiteness, therefore both can be translated as “a(n)” and “the”.

When preceding collective nouns or names of substances, "te" can be translated as "some." A limited set of nouns, typically referring to unique entities, dispense with te. This includes words like taai “sun”, karawa “sky”, taari/marawa “sea”, among others. Interestingly, Te Atua, “God”, is an exception. The article te also acts as a nominalizer, transforming adjectives into nouns. While te marks singular nouns, the language possesses a plural article taian. However, its use is restricted to countable nouns inherently implying plurality. Collective nouns typically don't take taian. In certain situations, when plurality is evident from surrounding words, taian can be omitted.

The personal articles are used before personal names. The masculine form is 'te' before names beginning with <i, u, w, b', ng>, 'tem' before <b, m>, 'ten' before <a, e, o, n, r, t> and 'teng' before <k, (ng)>.

Pronouns

Pronouns have different forms according to case: nominative (subject), accusative (object), emphatic (vocatives, adjunct pronouns), genitive (possessives).

Demonstratives^[19]19">edit

The Gilbertese language employs a system of demonstratives to indicate the spatial proximity of the referent to the speaker. These demonstratives are postnominal, meaning they follow the noun they modify.