| Also Known As: Gilbertese,Ikiribati,I-Kiribati,Kiribati
Description:
Gilbertese or Kiribati (or sometimes Kiribatese, a mixture of both) is a language from the Austronesian family, part of the Oceanian branch and of the Nuclear Micronesian subbranch. It is a verb object subject language.
The word Kiribati is just the modern rendition for "Gilberts", so the name is not usually translated into English. "Gilberts" comes from Captain Thomas Gilbert, who along with Captain John Marshall were the first Europeans to discover the Gilbert Islands in 1788. The official name of the language is te taetae ni Kiribati, or 'the Kiribati language'.
The first complete description of this language was in Dictionnaire gilbertin-français of Father Ernest Sabatier (981p, 1954), a Catholic priest. This Dictionary has been translated into English later by Sister Olivia (with the help of South Pacific Commission).
About 105,000 people speak Gilbertese, 98,000 of whom live in Kiribati, about 97.2% of the entire population. The others are the inhabitants of Nui (Tuvalu), Rabi Island (Fiji), Mili (Marshall Islands) and some other islands where I-Kiribati have been relocated (Solomon Islands, notably Choiseul Province, and Vanuatu) or emigrated (to New Zealand and Hawaii..... full article at Wikipedia |