Rotuman language
Encyclopedia
Rotuman, also referred to as Rotunan, Rutuman or Fäeag Rotuma, is an Austronesian language
spoken by the indigenous people of the South Pacific
island group of Rotuma
, an island with a Polynesian
-influenced culture that was incorporated as a dependency into the Colony of Fiji
in 1881. Classification of Rotuman is difficult due to the large number of loan words from Samoan
and Tongan
, as a result of much cultural exchange over the history of the Pacific. Linguist Andrew Pawley
groups the language with the West Fijian languages in a West Fijian – Rotuman branch of the Central Pacific sub-group of Oceanic languages.
The Rotuman language has sparked much interest with linguist
s because the language uses metathesis
to invert the ultimate vowel in a word with the immediately preceding consonant, resulting in a vowel system characterized by umlaut
, vowel shortening or extending and diphthong
isation.
Unlike its Pacific neighbours, Rotuman is typically considered an AVO (agent–verb–object) Language.
Rotuman has no phonemic vowel length and is underlyingly a language of open syllables. Thus, only consonant + vowel syllables exist in the underlying syllable structure, although phonological processes provide for more variation. A minimal word constraint that disallows words of less than two moras also alters this underlying representation so that, other than words from non-lexical categories, a word like /ka/ ('tomorrow') is realized as [kaa]. This constraint applies before word compounding (including reduplication
as well): /fu/ ('coral reef
') + /liʔu/ ('deep sea') → [fuuˈliʔu] ('deep sea pool'). Vowels are also lengthened when both final and stressed.
Non-high vowels are raised when followed by a syllable with a high vowel.
→ [e] → [ɔ] → [o]
Generally speaking, when /a/ is followed by /ɛ/ within a metrical foot
) it is fronted to [æ].
An important aspect of Rotuman morphonology is what will be hereafter called the "incomplete" and "complete" phases although they have also been referred to as "long" and "short" forms, "primary" and "secondary" forms, "absolute" and "construct" cases, and "proper & original" and "altered or construct" forms. The complete phase applies to semantically definite or specific terms. Otherwise, in normal conversation (that is, excluding song, poetry, and chant), the incomplete phase applies to all but the last morpheme of a word and all but the last word of a phrase. This can lead to syllable-final consonants in a language that has an underlying all-open syllable system.
The above table (C indicates any consonant) shows that metathesis and deletion are important parts of incomplete phase formation. The final vowel and immediately preceding consonant metathesize going from V1CV2#, to V1V2C# where V1 is any underlying penultimate vowel, V2 is any underlying ultimate vowel, C is any consonant, and # is the word, phrase, or morpheme boundary.
After metathesis, "V2 is deleted if V1 is not further back than V2 and if V2 is not lower than 1" or if the two vowels are identical. Further processes of elision result in coalescence or spreading of features. That is, back vowels are fronted
before front vowels of equal or greater height (/ɛ/ and/or /i/ affect /ɔ/ and just /i/ affects /u/) before the latter are deleted.
→ [y] → [ø~œ]
In addition, the /a/ → [æ] rule takes effect again, this time outside of the moraic foot, and can occur with a following /i/; and both /ɛ/. and /a/ become [ɔ] after a syllable with a high vowel (/i/ or /u/). When V1 is higher than V2, it is devocalized to the corresponding semivowel
; [j] for front vowel
s and [w] for back vowel
s.
Word stress is associated with left-dominant bimoraic feet. The penultimate mora of nonderived words carries the stress. Other than the nominalizing suffix |-ŋa| and the causative suffix |-ʔaki|, stress is assigned before additional morphemes are affixed and before incomplete phase morphonology.
Catholic
Missionaries built an orthography based on their own alphabet, while the primarily English Wesleyan Methodist
preachers developed their own orthography to write in Rotuman. The prevalent one used today is one from the English Methodist Reverend C. M. Churchward, in whose knowledge of linguistics the Tongan
orthography was also devised. The alphabet, as it appears in Churchward's seminal work, "Rotuman Grammar and Dictionary":
In the cases of the variations to the vowels a, o and i, Churchward's dictionary treats these letters as though there is no variation between the species within the base letter. Hence the word päega, meaning seat, appears before pạri meaning banana
, which in turn appears before pau, meaning very much.
In addition, there are instances where all original vowels above appear with a macron, indicating
length (that is, they are longer) although vowel length is arguably a phonological process.
Because Churchward’s alphabet was created before a sufficient analysis of Rotuman phonology, it is not purely phonemic. George Milner proposed a more phonemic spelling without diacritics that incorporates the understanding of vowel allophony as having to do with metathesis (see above)
published in 1975 (Matthew
6:9–13) http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/JPN-rotuman.html. It is written using the diacritics of Churchward's orthography:
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
spoken by the indigenous people of the South Pacific
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
island group of Rotuma
Rotuma
Rotuma is a Fijian dependency, consisting of Rotuma Island and nearby islets. The island group is home to a small but unique indigenous ethnic group which constitutes a recognizable minority within the population of Fiji, known as "Rotumans"...
, an island with a Polynesian
Polynesian culture
Polynesian culture refers to the indigenous peoples' culture of Polynesia who share common traits in language, customs and society. Chronologically, the development of Polynesian culture can be divided into four different historical eras:...
-influenced culture that was incorporated as a dependency into the Colony of Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
in 1881. Classification of Rotuman is difficult due to the large number of loan words from Samoan
Samoan language
Samoan Samoan Samoan (Gagana Sāmoa, is the language of the Samoan Islands, comprising the independent country of Samoa and the United States territory of American Samoa. It is an official language—alongside English—in both jurisdictions. Samoan, a Polynesian language, is the first language for most...
and Tongan
Tongan language
Tongan is an Austronesian language spoken in Tonga. It has around 200,000 speakers and is a national language of Tonga. It is a VSO language.-Related languages:...
, as a result of much cultural exchange over the history of the Pacific. Linguist Andrew Pawley
Andrew Pawley
Andrew Kenneth Pawley , MA, PhD , FRSNZ, FAHA, is Emeritus Professor at the School of Culture, History & Language of the College of Asia & the Pacific at the Australian National University...
groups the language with the West Fijian languages in a West Fijian – Rotuman branch of the Central Pacific sub-group of Oceanic languages.
The Rotuman language has sparked much interest with linguist
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
s because the language uses metathesis
Metathesis (linguistics)
Metathesis is the re-arranging of sounds or syllables in a word, or of words in a sentence. Most commonly it refers to the switching of two or more contiguous sounds, known as adjacent metathesis or local metathesis:...
to invert the ultimate vowel in a word with the immediately preceding consonant, resulting in a vowel system characterized by umlaut
I-mutation
I-mutation is an important type of sound change, more precisely a category of regressive metaphony, in which a back vowel is fronted, and/or a front vowel is raised, if the following syllable contains /i/, /ī/ or /j/ I-mutation (also known as umlaut, front mutation, i-umlaut, i/j-mutation or...
, vowel shortening or extending and diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
isation.
Unlike its Pacific neighbours, Rotuman is typically considered an AVO (agent–verb–object) Language.
Morphonology
| Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
Coronal Coronal consonant Coronal consonants are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical , laminal , domed , or subapical , as well as a few rarer orientations, because only the front of the tongue has such... |
Post- alveolar Postalveolar consonant Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ŋ | ||
| Stop Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
p | t | tʃ | k | ʔ |
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
f v | s | h | ||
| Liquid Liquid consonant In phonetics, liquids or liquid consonants are a class of consonants consisting of lateral consonants together with rhotics.-Description:... |
r l |
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|
|---|---|---|
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
i | u |
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
ɛ | ɔ |
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
a |
Rotuman has no phonemic vowel length and is underlyingly a language of open syllables. Thus, only consonant + vowel syllables exist in the underlying syllable structure, although phonological processes provide for more variation. A minimal word constraint that disallows words of less than two moras also alters this underlying representation so that, other than words from non-lexical categories, a word like /ka/ ('tomorrow') is realized as [kaa]. This constraint applies before word compounding (including reduplication
Reduplication
Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
as well): /fu/ ('coral reef
Coral reef
Coral reefs are underwater structures made from calcium carbonate secreted by corals. Coral reefs are colonies of tiny living animals found in marine waters that contain few nutrients. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, which in turn consist of polyps that cluster in groups. The polyps...
') + /liʔu/ ('deep sea') → [fuuˈliʔu] ('deep sea pool'). Vowels are also lengthened when both final and stressed.
Non-high vowels are raised when followed by a syllable with a high vowel.
→ [e] → [ɔ] → [o]
Generally speaking, when /a/ is followed by /ɛ/ within a metrical foot
Foot (prosody)
The foot is the basic metrical unit that generates a line of verse in most Western traditions of poetry, including English accentual-syllabic verse and the quantitative meter of classical ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The unit is composed of syllables, the number of which is limited, with a few...
) it is fronted to [æ].
| complete | incomplete | gloss |
|---|---|---|
| [tuˈturu] | [tuˈtur] | 'post...' |
| [ˈmosɛ] | [ˈmøs] | 'to sleep...' |
| [ˈpikɔ] | [ˈpiɔk] | 'lazy' |
An important aspect of Rotuman morphonology is what will be hereafter called the "incomplete" and "complete" phases although they have also been referred to as "long" and "short" forms, "primary" and "secondary" forms, "absolute" and "construct" cases, and "proper & original" and "altered or construct" forms. The complete phase applies to semantically definite or specific terms. Otherwise, in normal conversation (that is, excluding song, poetry, and chant), the incomplete phase applies to all but the last morpheme of a word and all but the last word of a phrase. This can lead to syllable-final consonants in a language that has an underlying all-open syllable system.
- |mafa| ('eyes') + |huhu| ('take off') → /mafhuhu/ → [mɔfhuh] ('minutely')
| i | ɛ | a | ɔ | u | |
| i | iC | jɛC | jɔC | juC | iC |
| ɛ | eC | ɛC | jaC | ɛC | ɛC |
| a | æC | æC | aC | aC | ɔC |
| ɔ | øC | œC | waC | ɔC | oC |
| u | yC | wɛC | wɔC | wɔC | uC |
The above table (C indicates any consonant) shows that metathesis and deletion are important parts of incomplete phase formation. The final vowel and immediately preceding consonant metathesize going from V1CV2#, to V1V2C# where V1 is any underlying penultimate vowel, V2 is any underlying ultimate vowel, C is any consonant, and # is the word, phrase, or morpheme boundary.
After metathesis, "V2 is deleted if V1 is not further back than V2 and if V2 is not lower than 1" or if the two vowels are identical. Further processes of elision result in coalescence or spreading of features. That is, back vowels are fronted
I-mutation
I-mutation is an important type of sound change, more precisely a category of regressive metaphony, in which a back vowel is fronted, and/or a front vowel is raised, if the following syllable contains /i/, /ī/ or /j/ I-mutation (also known as umlaut, front mutation, i-umlaut, i/j-mutation or...
before front vowels of equal or greater height (/ɛ/ and/or /i/ affect /ɔ/ and just /i/ affects /u/) before the latter are deleted.
→ [y] → [ø~œ]
In addition, the /a/ → [æ] rule takes effect again, this time outside of the moraic foot, and can occur with a following /i/; and both /ɛ/. and /a/ become [ɔ] after a syllable with a high vowel (/i/ or /u/). When V1 is higher than V2, it is devocalized to the corresponding semivowel
Semivowel
In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:...
; [j] for front vowel
Front vowel
A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...
s and [w] for back vowel
Back vowel
A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
s.
Word stress is associated with left-dominant bimoraic feet. The penultimate mora of nonderived words carries the stress. Other than the nominalizing suffix |-ŋa| and the causative suffix |-ʔaki|, stress is assigned before additional morphemes are affixed and before incomplete phase morphonology.
Orthography
Upon missionary contact, various orthographies abounded on the island of Rotuma. The FrenchFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
Missionaries built an orthography based on their own alphabet, while the primarily English Wesleyan Methodist
Methodist Church of Great Britain
The Methodist Church of Great Britain is the largest Wesleyan Methodist body in the United Kingdom, with congregations across Great Britain . It is the United Kingdom's fourth largest Christian denomination, with around 300,000 members and 6,000 churches...
preachers developed their own orthography to write in Rotuman. The prevalent one used today is one from the English Methodist Reverend C. M. Churchward, in whose knowledge of linguistics the Tongan
Tongan language
Tongan is an Austronesian language spoken in Tonga. It has around 200,000 speakers and is a national language of Tonga. It is a VSO language.-Related languages:...
orthography was also devised. The alphabet, as it appears in Churchward's seminal work, "Rotuman Grammar and Dictionary":
- a – /a/
- ȧ' or ä – /a/
- ạ – /ɔ/
- e – /e/
- f – /f/
- g – /ŋ/
- h – /h/
- i – /i/
- j – /tʃ/
- k – /k/
- l – /l/
- m – /m/
- n – /n/
- o – /ɔ/
- ö – /ø/
- p – /p/
- s – /s/
- t – /t/
- u – /u/
- ü – /y/
- v – /v/
- – /ʔ/ the glottal stop
In the cases of the variations to the vowels a, o and i, Churchward's dictionary treats these letters as though there is no variation between the species within the base letter. Hence the word päega, meaning seat, appears before pạri meaning banana
Banana
Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red....
, which in turn appears before pau, meaning very much.
In addition, there are instances where all original vowels above appear with a macron, indicating
length (that is, they are longer) although vowel length is arguably a phonological process.
Because Churchward’s alphabet was created before a sufficient analysis of Rotuman phonology, it is not purely phonemic. George Milner proposed a more phonemic spelling without diacritics that incorporates the understanding of vowel allophony as having to do with metathesis (see above)
| Churchward | IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic... |
Milner | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| complete | incomplete | incomplete | ||
| mose | mös | [møs] | moes | 'sleep' |
| futi | füt | [fyt] | fuit | 'pull' |
| a+su | a+s | [ɔs] | aus | 'steam' |
| a+ti | ȧt | [æt] | ait | 'gather (shellfish)' |
Text examples
This is the Rotuman language version of the Our Father, as found in the translation of the BibleBible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
published in 1975 (Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
6:9–13) http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/JPN-rotuman.html. It is written using the diacritics of Churchward's orthography: