Tokelauan
Sign in to savePolynesian language native to Tokelau
AI overview
Tokelauan is a Polynesian language spoken by the people of Tokelau, a small territory in the South Pacific. It matters as part of the cultural and linguistic heritage of the Tokelauan people, representing their distinct identity and way of life in the region.
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Key facts
- Native to
- Tokelau , New Zealand
- Ethnicity
- Tokelauans
- Native speakers
- 1,200 in Tokelau (2020) , 2,500 in New Zealand ( 2013 census ) , 825 in Australia ( 2021 census )
- Language family
- Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian ? Eastern Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Central–Eastern Oceanic Central Pacific East Central Pacific Polynesian Nuclear Polynesian Samoic or Ellicean Pukapukic? Samoan –Tokelauan? Tokelauan
- Official language in
- Tokelau
- Iso 639 2
- tkl
- Iso 639 3
- tkl
- Glottolog
- toke1240
- Elp
- Tokelauan
via Wikipedia infobox
Article
Tokelauan (/toʊkəˈlaʊən/) is a Polynesian language spoken in Tokelau and historically by the small population of Swains Island (or Olohega) in American Samoa. It is closely related to Tuvaluan and is related to Samoan and other Polynesian languages. Tokelauan has a co-official status with English in Tokelau. There are approximately 4,260 speakers of Tokelauan, of whom 2,100 live in New Zealand, 1,400 in Tokelau, and 17 in Swains Island. "Tokelau" means "north-northeast".
Loimata Iupati, Tokelau's resident Director of Education, has stated that he is in the process of translating the Bible from English into Tokelauan. While many Tokelau residents are multilingual, Tokelauan was the language of day-to-day affairs in Tokelau until at least the 1990s, and is spoken by 88% of Tokelauan residents. Of the 4600 people who speak the language, 1600 of them live in the three atolls of Tokelau – Atafu, Nukunonu and Fakaofo. Approximately 3000 people in New Zealand speak Tokelauan, and the rest of the known Tokelauan speakers are spread across Australia, Hawaii, and the West Coast of the United States. The Tokelauan language closely resembles its more widely spoken and close genealogical relative, Samoan; the two maintain a degree of mutual intelligibility.