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Marquesan is a collection of East-Central Polynesian dialects, of the Marquesic group, spoken in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia. They are usually classified into two groups, North Marquesan and South Marquesan, roughly along geographic lines.

The North Marquesan dialects are spoken on the islands of Ua Pu and Nuku Hiva, and South Marquesan dialects on the islands of Hiva ʻOa, Tahuata and Fatu Hiva. The dialects of Ua Huka are often incorrectly classified as North Marquesan; they are instead transitional. While the island is in the northern Marquesas group, the dialects show more morphological and phonological affinities with South Marquesan. The North Marquesan dialects are sometimes considered two separate languages: North Marquesan and Tai Pi Marquesan, the latter being spoken in the valleys of the eastern third of the island of Nuku Hiva, in the ancient province of Tai Pi.

Phonology

The most striking feature of the Marquesan languages is their almost universal replacement of the /r/ or /l/ of other Polynesian languages by a /ʔ/ (glottal stop).

Like other Polynesian languages, the phonology of Marquesan languages is characterized by a paucity of consonants and a comparative abundance of vowels. The consonant phonemes are:

Nasals: /m/ /n/ /ŋ/

Fricatives: /f/ /h/ /v/

Plosives: /p/ /t/ /k/ /ʔ/

Liquids: /r/

Of this small number of consonants, /ŋ/ is found only in eastern Nuku Hiva (Tai Pi Marquesan), and /f/ is found only in South Marquesan dialects. In writing, the phoneme /ŋ/ is represented by n(g), and /ʔ/ is represented as ‘ or ’.

Unlike Samoan, the /ŋ/ is not an isolated nasal: it is found only in conjunction with a following /k/. So, whereas the Samoan word for "bay" is faga, pronounced [ˈfa.ŋa], it is hanga in Tai Pi Marquesan, and is pronounced /ˈha.ŋka/. (This word is useful to demonstrate one of the more predictable regular consonantal differences between the northern and southern dialects: in North Marquesan, the word is haka, and in South Marquesan, it is hana).

The letter h is used to represent a wide range of sounds, with some authors reporting that, in addition to representing /h/, it also represents a variety of fricatives from /s/ to /x/, along with a number of palatalized or labialized variants. The primary factor in this wide range of sounds appears a result of sandhi. These fricatives are all allophones of the simple /h/.

The vowel phonemes are the same as in other Polynesian languages, long and short versions of each:

/a/ /aː/

/e/ /eː/

/i/ /iː/

/o/ /oː/

/u/ /uː/

North vs South Marquesan

North Marquesan is found in the northern islands, and South Marquesan in the southern islands, as well as on Ua Huka in the northern Marquesas.

The most noticeable differences between the varieties are Northern Marquesan /k/ in some words where South Marquesan has /n/ or /ʔ/ (glottal stop), and /h/ in all words where South Marquesan has /f/. For example,

The northern dialects fall roughly into four groups:

Tai Pi, spoken in the eastern third of Nuku Hiva, and according to some linguists, a separate language, Tai Pi Marquesan

Tei`i, spoken in western Nuku Hiva

Eastern Ua Pu

Western Ua Pu

The southern dialects fall roughly into three groups:

Pepane: Eastern Hiva `Oa and Ua Huka

Fatu Hiva

Nuku: Western Hiva `Oa and Tahuata

North Marquesan exhibits some particularly interesting characteristics. It alone seems to have taken "the other path" in the simplification of Proto-Polynesian nasalized consonants. Where most Polynesian languages simplified *mb to /m/, North Marquesan has /p/, and where most simplified *nd to /n/, North Marquesan has /t/. While some Polynesian languages maintained the velar nasal /ŋ/, many have lost the distinction between the nasals /ŋ/ and /n/, merging both into /n/. North Marquesan, however, prefers /k/. Another notable feature of North Marquesan is that from it, it appears that Proto-Polynesian had a consonant cluster *kt, or perhaps a palatal stop (as is the case with all comparative and reconstructive linguistics, this is the subject of some debate)... Whatever that cluster or stop might have been, it is realized in every modern Polynesian language as /t/ with the exception of North Marquesan, which uses /k/. Another feature is that, while almost every Polynesian language has dropped *k in many positions, replacing it with /ʔ/, North Marquesan has retained it. (Tahitian and colloquial Samoan have no /k/ whatsoever, and the /k/ in modern Hawaiian is pronounced either [k] or [t] and derives from Polynesian *t.)

Resources

• Much of this information was gleaned from reading the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum Bulletins regarding the Marquesas Islands.
• Gabriele H. Cablitz (2006). Marquesan: A Grammar of Space. Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 169. Mouton de Gruyter.
• “Grammaire et dictionnaire de la langue des Îles Marquises”: Msgr. Dordillon's Marquesan language dictionary (Société des études océaniennes, Pape’ete, 1904 - reissued 1999) (French)

External links

• Online version of the Grammaire et dictionnaire de la langue des Iles Marquises — Marquisien-Français (Paris, Institut d'Ethnologie, 1931) (French)
• Aperçu de la langue des îles Marquises et de la langue taïtienne, accompagné d'un vocabulaire inédit de la langue taïtienne [1] (Johann Buschmann & Guillaume de Humboldt, Berlin, 1843) (French)

Note

1. ^ Sic, for “tahitienne”. Historical and geographical introduction by Johann Buschmann, plus a lexicon by Wilhelm von Humboldt. Though old and outdated, this book is interesting enough.