Palauan language explained
Palauan (Palauan: a tekoi er a Belau) is a Malayo-Polynesian language native to the Republic of Palau, where it is one of the two official languages, alongside English. It is widely used in day-to-day life in the country. Palauan is not closely related to other Malayo-Polynesian languages and its exact classification within the branch is unclear.
Classification
It is a member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian family of languages, and is one of only two indigenous languages in Micronesia that are not part of the Oceanic sub-branch of that family, the other being Chamorro (see,,, and).
Roger Blench (2015)[3] argues that based on evidence from fish names, Palauan had early contact with Oceanic languages either directly or indirectly via the Yapese language. These include fish names for the sea eel, yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares), left-eye flounder (Bothus mancus), triggerfish, sailfish, barracuda (Sphyraena barracuda), damsel fish (Abudefduf sp.), squirrelfish (Holocentrus spp.), unicorn fish (Naso spp.), trevally, land crab (Cardisoma rotundus), and wrasse. This suggests that Oceanic speakers had influenced the fishing culture of Palau, and had been fishing and trading in the vicinity of Palau for quite some time. Blench (2015) also suggests that the Palauan language displays influence from Central Philippine languages and Samalic languages.
Phonology
The phonemic inventory of Palauan consists of 10 consonants and 6 vowels.[4] Phonetic charts of the vowel and consonant phonemes are provided below, utilizing the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
| Front | Central | Back | | High | pronounced as /link/ | | pronounced as /link/ |
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| Mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ |
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| Low | | pronounced as /link/ | | |
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| | + Consonant phonemes | | Bilabial | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal |
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| Nasal | width=20px style="border-right: 0;" | | width=20px style="border-left: 0;" | pronounced as /link/ | | width=20px style="border-right: 0;" | | width=20px style="border-left: 0;" | pronounced as /link/ | |
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| Stop | | pronounced as /link/ | width=20px style="border-right: 0;" | pronounced as /link/ | width=20px style="border-left: 0;" | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | | width=20px style="border-right: 0;" | pronounced as /link/ | width=20px style="border-left: 0;" | |
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| Fricative | | pronounced as /link/ | | | |
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| Lateral | | | pronounced as /link/ | | |
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| Flap | | | pronounced as /link/ | | | |
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Allophones
While the phonemic inventory of Palauan is relatively small, comparatively, many phonemes contain at least two allophones that surface as the result of various phonological processes within the language. The full phonetic inventory of consonants is given below in IPA (the phonemic inventory of vowels, above, is complete).
| + Consonant allophones | | Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal |
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| Nasal | width=20px style="border-right: 0;" | | width=20px style="border-left: 0;" | pronounced as /link/ | | width=20px style="border-right: 0;" | | width=20px style="border-left: 0;" | pronounced as /link/ | | width=20px style="border-right: 0;" | | width=20px style="border-left: 0;" | pronounced as /link/ | |
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| Stop | pronounced as /link/
pronounced as /pʰ/ | pronounced as /link/
| | pronounced as /link/
pronounced as /tʰ/ | pronounced as /link/
| | pronounced as /link/
pronounced as /kʰ/ | pronounced as /link/
| width=20px style="border-right: 0;" | pronounced as /link/
| width=20px style="border-left: 0;" | |
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| Fricative | | width=20px style="border-right: 0;" | pronounced as /link/ | width=20px style="border-left: 0;" | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | | | | |
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Approximant
(Lateral) | | | | width=20px style="border-right: 0;" | | width=20px style="border-left: 0;" | pronounced as /link/ | | pronounced as /link/ | |
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| | | pronounced as /link/ | | | | | Flap | | | | pronounced as /link/ | | | |
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| Trill | | | | pronounced as /link/ | | | | |
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The following is the table of allophones and their contexts in Palauan.
| Phoneme | Allophone | Context |
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| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | - Word final, e.g. Palauan: tub pronounced as /[tʰup]/ "spit"
- Before another consonant, e.g. Palauan: brer pronounced as /[prɛr]/
|
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| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | - Word initially (in careful speech), e.g. Palauan: dub pronounced as /[ðup]/ "dynamite"
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Diphthongs
Palauan contains several diphthongs (sequences of vowels within a single syllable). A list of diphthongs and corresponding Palauan words containing them are given below, adapted from .
| Example | English Translation | | pronounced as //iɛ// | Palauan: babier | "paper" (German loan) | | pronounced as //iu// | Palauan: chiukl | "(singing) voice" | | pronounced as //io// | Palauan: kikiongel | "dirty" | | pronounced as //ia// | Palauan: diall | "ship" | | pronounced as //ɛi// | Palauan: mei | "come" | | pronounced as //ɛu// | Palauan: teu|' | "width" | | pronounced as //ɛo// | Palauan: Oreor | "Koror" (former capital of Palau) | | pronounced as //ɛa// | Palauan: beached | "tin" | | pronounced as //ui// | Palauan: tuich | "torch" | | pronounced as //uɛ// | Palauan: sueleb | "afternoon" | | pronounced as //uo// | Palauan: uos | "horse" (English loan) | | pronounced as //ua// | Palauan: tuangel | "door" | | pronounced as //oi// | Palauan: tekoi | "word" | | pronounced as //oɛ// | Palauan: beroel | "spear" | | pronounced as //ou// | Palauan: merous | "distribute" | | pronounced as //oa// | Palauan: omoachel | "river" | | pronounced as //ai// | Palauan: chais | "news" | | pronounced as //aɛ// | Palauan: baeb | "pipe" (English loan) | | pronounced as //au// | Palauan: mesaul | "tired" | | pronounced as //ao// | Palauan: taod | "fork" | |
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The extent to which it is accurate to characterize each of these vowel sequences as diphthongs has been a matter of debate, as in,,, and . Nevertheless, a number of the sequences above, such as pronounced as //ui//, clearly behave as diphthongs given their interaction with other aspects of Palauan phonology like stress shift and vowel reduction. Others do not behave as clearly like monosyllabic diphthongs.
Writing system
In the early 1970s, the Palau Orthography Committee worked with linguists from the University of Hawaii to devise an alphabet based on the Latin script.[5] The resulting orthography was largely based on the "one phoneme/one symbol" notion, producing an alphabet of twelve native consonants, six consonants for use in loan words, and ten vowels. The 20 vowel sequences listed under Diphthongs are also all officially recognized in the orthography.
Most of the letters/graphemes in written Palauan correspond to phonemes that can be represented by the corresponding segments in the International Phonetic Alphabet, e.g., Palauan (b) is the phoneme pronounced as /link/. Three notable exceptions are worth mentioning:
- The first is (ch), which is invariably pronounced as a glottal stop pronounced as /link/. The ch digraph is a remnant of an earlier writing system developed during German occupation when the glottal stop was pronounced as a fricative pronounced as /link/; some older Palauans still remember their grandparents pronouncing ch this way. In modern Palauan usage the sound pronounced as /link/ has been completely replaced by pronounced as /link/, but the ch spelling persists.
- The second is (e). It represents sometimes the full vowel pronounced as /link/ as in Palauan: s'''e'''rs pronounced as /pau/ 'garden', and sometimes a schwa pronounced as /link/, as in Palauan: ngal'''e'''k pronounced as /pau/ 'child'. The distribution of the two pronunciations is similar to those of English vowel reduction: pronounced as /link/ is found in stressed syllables vs. pronounced as /link/ in unstressed ones (compare Eng. English: f'''e'''ll vs. English: fall'''e'''n).
- The two sounds pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/ were once distinguished in the orthography, as the schwa pronounced as /link/ was spelled (ę), using an ogonek: e.g. Palauan: ngal'''ę'''k pronounced as /pau/ 'child'. This was the orthography used by Josephs in his 1975 grammar;[6] yet the same author has used a simple (e) in his later work, e.g. his 1990 dictionary.[7]
- The third is the digraph (ng), which is a (phonemic) velar nasal pronounced as /link/ but can assimilate to be pronounced as pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /link/.
There is no phonemic pronounced as /link/ in Palauan: this gap is due to a historical sound shift from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *n to pronounced as /link/ ‒ a change that is also found elsewhere in the region (e.g. in Gorontalo).
On May 10, 2007, the Senate of Palau passed Bill No. 7-79, which mandates that educational institutions recognize the Palauan orthography laid out in and . The bill also establishes an Orthography Commission to maintain the language as it develops as well as to oversee and regulate any additions or modifications to the current official orthography.
| IPA | Example word | | b | pronounced as /[b]/, pronounced as /[p]/, pronounced as /[bʱ]/, pronounced as /[pʰ]/ | Palauan: bai 'community house' | | ch | pronounced as /[ʔ]/ | Palauan: charm 'animal' | | d | pronounced as /[d]/, pronounced as /[t]/, pronounced as /[ð]/, pronounced as /[θ]/ | Palauan: diall 'ship' | | k | pronounced as /[k]/, pronounced as /[ɡ]/, pronounced as /[kʰ]/, pronounced as /[ɡʱ]/ | Palauan: ker 'question' | | l | pronounced as /[l]/ | Palauan: lius 'coconut' | | ll | pronounced as /[lː]/ | Palauan: llel 'leaf' | | m | pronounced as /[m]/ | Palauan: martiliong 'hammer' (Span. Spanish; Castilian: Martillo) | | ng | pronounced as /[ŋ]/, pronounced as /[n]/ | Palauan: ngau 'fire' | | r | pronounced as /[ɾ]/ | Palauan: rekas 'mosquito' | | rr | pronounced as /[r]/ | Palauan: rrom 'liquor' | | s | pronounced as /[s]/ | Palauan: sechelei 'friend' | | t | pronounced as /[t]/, pronounced as /[tʰ]/ | Palauan: tuu 'banana' | |
| | IPA | Example word | | f | pronounced as /[f]/ | Palauan: fenda 'fender' (Eng.) | | h | pronounced as /[h]/ | Palauan: haibio 'tuberculosis' (Jpn. Japanese: haibyoo Japanese: 肺病) | | n | pronounced as /[n]/ | Palauan: sensei 'teacher' (Jpn. Japanese: sensei Japanese: 先生)" | | p | pronounced as /[p]/ | Palauan: Papa 'the Pope' (Span. Spanish; Castilian: Papa) | | ts | pronounced as /[ts]/ | Palauan: tsuingam 'chewing gum' (Eng.) | | z | pronounced as /[z]/ | Palauan: miuzium 'museum' (Eng.) | |
| | IPA | Example word | | a | pronounced as /[a]/ | Palauan: chad 'person' | | e | pronounced as /[ɛ]/ | Palauan: sers 'garden' | | e | pronounced as /[ə]/ | Palauan: ngalek 'child' | | ee | pronounced as /[ɛː]/ | Palauan: kmeed 'near' | | i | pronounced as /[i]/ | Palauan: sils 'sun' | | ii | pronounced as /[iː], [ji], [ij]/ | Palauan: iis 'nose' | | o | pronounced as /[o]/ | Palauan: ngor 'mouth' | | oo | pronounced as /[oː]/ | Palauan: sekool 'playful' | | u | pronounced as /[u]/ | Palauan: bung 'flower' | | uu | pronounced as /[uː], [wu], [uw]/ | Palauan: ngduul 'mangrove clam' | |
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Grammar
Pronouns
The following set of pronouns are the pronouns found in the Palauan language:
| | Free | NOM I | NOM II | OBJ | POSS |
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| 1st person singular | Palauan: ngak | Palauan: ak | Palauan: k- | Palauan: -ak | Palauan: -k |
| 2nd person singular | Palauan: kau | Palauan: kə | Palauan: chom- | Palauan: -au | Palauan: -m |
| 3rd person singular | Palauan: ngii | Palauan: ng | Palauan: l- | Palauan: -ii | Palauan: -l |
| 1st person plural inclusive | Palauan: kid | Palauan: kədə | Palauan: d- | Palauan: -id | Palauan: -d |
| 1st person plural exclusive | Palauan: kəmam | Palauan: aki | Palauan: -kim | Palauan: -əmam | Palauan: -(m)am |
| 2nd person plural | Palauan: kəmiu | Palauan: kom | Palauan: chom- | Palauan: -əmiu | Palauan: -(m)iu |
| 3rd person plural | Palauan: tir | Palauan: tə | Palauan: -l | Palauan: -tərir | Palauan: -rir |
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Noun inflection
Palauan nouns inflect based on humanness and number via the plural prefix Palauan: re-, which attaches to plural human nouns (see). For example, the word Palauan: chad 'person' is a human noun that is unambiguously singular, whereas the noun Palauan: rechad people is a human noun that is unambiguously plural. Non-human nouns do not display this distinction, e.g., the word for 'stone', Palauan: bad, can denote either a singular 'stone' or multiple 'stones.'[8]
Some possessed nouns in Palauan also inflect to agree with the person, number, and humanness of their possessors. For example, the unpossessed noun Palauan: tebel means simply 'table,' whereas one of its possessed forms Palauan: tebelek means 'my table.' Possessor agreement is always registered via the addition of a suffix to the noun (also triggering a shift in stress to the suffix). The possessor agreement suffixes have many different irregular forms that only attach to particular nouns, and they must be memorized on a noun-by-noun basis . However, there is a "default" e-set suffixes (see and), shown below:
! rowspan="2" | Singular | Plural |
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| Inclusive | Exclusive |
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| 1st person | Palauan: -ek | Palauan: -ed | Palauan: -am |
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| 2nd person | Palauan: -em | Palauan: -iu |
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| 3rd person | human | Palauan: -el | Palauan: -ir |
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| nonhuman | Palauan: -el |
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! rowspan="2" | Singular | Plural |
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| Inclusive | Exclusive |
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| 1st person | Palauan: -Vk | Palauan: -Vd | Palauan: -(e)mam |
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| 2nd person | Palauan: -Vm | Palauan: -(e)miu |
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| 3rd person | human | Palauan: -Vl | Palauan: -(e)rir |
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| nonhuman | Palauan: -Vl |
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| Note that -V- represents vowels -u-, -i-, or -a-. | |
There are some morphophonological changes, often unpredictable, including:
- Single vowels are reduced to pronounced as //ə//, written as Palauan: e (Palauan: bad → Palauan: b'''e'''d·uk 'my stone'), or being syncopated entirely (Palauan: ngikel → Palauan: ngkel·el 'my fish'), with few nouns do not reduce their vowel (Palauan: chim → Palauan: ch'''i'''m·ak 'my hand')
- Double vowels are reduced to single vowels (Palauan: deel → Palauan: del·ek 'my nail'), sometimes reduced further to pronounced as //ə// (Palauan: diil → Palauan: d'''e'''l·ek) or even syncopated
- Due to syncopation, numerous complicated consonant clusters are produced, and some of them are simplified in Palauan (Palauan: relm → Palauan: lm·ek 'my water', Palauan: tut → Palauan: t·uk 'my breast')
Verb inflection
Palauan verb morphology is highly complex. Palauan: menga(ng) 'eat', for example, may be analyzed as verb prefix Palauan: me- + imperfective Palauan: -ng- + Palauan: kal, in which Palauan: -kal is an archimorpheme that is only apparent from comparing various forms, e.g. Palauan: kall 'food' and taking into consideration morphophonemic patterns: Palauan: Ng milenga a ngikel a bilis 'the dog was eating fish' (lit. it VERB PREFIX-m eat-PAST INFIX-il- ARTICLE fish ARTICLE dog); Palauan: Ng kma a ngikel a bilis 'The dog eats up fish' (lit. it-eat-PERFECTIVE-INFIX-m- fish ARTICLE dog). The verb system points to fossilized forms related to the Philippine languages.
Word order
The word order of Palauan is usually thought to be verb–object–subject (VOS), but this has been a matter of some debate in the linguistic literature.[9] Those who accept the VOS analysis of Palauan word order generally treat Palauan as a pro-drop language with preverbal subject agreement morphemes, final pronominal subjects are deleted (or null).
Example 1: Palauan: Ak milenga er a ringo . (means: 'I was eating the apple.')
In the preceding example, the abstract null pronoun is the subject 'I,' while the clause-initial Palauan: ak is the first person singular subject agreement morpheme.
On the other hand, those who have analyzed Palauan as SVO necessarily reject the pro-drop analysis, instead analyzing the subject agreement morphemes as subject pronouns. In the preceding example, SVO-advocates assume that there is no pro and that the morpheme Palauan: ak is simply an overt subject pronoun meaning 'I'. One potential problem with this analysis is that it fails to explain why overt (3rd person) subjects occur clause-finally in the presence of a co-referring 3rd person "subject pronoun" --- treating the subject pronouns as agreement morphemes circumvents this weakness. Consider the following example.
Example 2: Palauan: Ng milenga er a ringngo a Satsuko. (means: 'Satsuko was eating the apple.')
Proponents of the SVO analysis must assume a shifting of the subject Palauan: a Satsuko 'Satsuko' from clause-initial to clause-final position, a movement operation that has not received acceptance cross-linguistically, but see for discussion.
Palauan phrases
Some common and useful words and phrases in Palauan are listed below, with their English translations.[10]
| Palauan | English |
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| Palauan: Alii! | Hello! | | Palauan: Ungil tutau. | Good morning. | | Palauan: Ungil sueleb. | Good afternoon. | | Palauan: Ungil kebesengei. | Good evening. | | Palauan: A ngklek a ___. | My name is ___. | | Palauan: Ng techa ngklem? | What's your name? | | Palauan: Ke ua ngerang? | How are you? | | Palauan: Ak mesisiich. | I'm fine. | | Palauan: Ak chad er a ___. | I'm from ___. | | Palauan: Belau | Palau | | Palauan: Merikel | U.S. | | Palauan: Ingklis | England | | Palauan: Siabal | Japan | | Palauan: Sina | China | | Palauan: Ke chad er ker el beluu? | Where are you from? | | Palauan: Ke mlechell er ker el beluu? | Where were you born? | |
| | Palauan | English |
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| Palauan: Ak mlechell er a ___. | I was born in ___. | | Palauan: Ng tela a rekim? | How old are you? | | Palauan: Ng ___ a rekik. | I am ___ years old. | | Palauan: Ng tela a dengua er kau? | What's your phone number? | | Palauan: A dengua er ngak a ___. | My phone number is ___. | | Palauan: Ke kiei er ker? | Where do you live? | | Palauan: Ak kiei er a ___. | I live ___. | | Palauan: Chochoi. | Yes. | | Palauan: Ng diak. | No. | | Palauan: Adang. | Please. | | Palauan: Sulang. | Thank you. | | Palauan: Ke mo er ker? | Where are you going? | | Palauan: Mechikung. | Goodbye. | | Palauan: Meral ma sulang! | Thank you very much! | | Palauan: A klebokel el bung | pretty flower. | |
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Palauan numerals
1 to 10:
- Palauan: tang
- Palauan: erung
- Palauan: edei
- Palauan: euang
- Palauan: eim
- Palauan: elolm
- Palauan: euid
- Palauan: eai
- Palauan: etiu
- Palauan: tacher
Palauans have different numbers for different objects. For example, to count people, it is: Palauan: tang, Palauan: terung, Palauan: tedei, Palauan: teuang, Palauan: teim, Palauan: telolem, Palauan: teuid, Palauan: teai, Palauan: tetiu, and Palauan: teruich. Traditionally, there were separate counting sets for people, things, counting, ordinals, bunches of bananas, units of time, long objects, and rafts; however, several of these are no longer used.[11]
References
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- Book: Lemaréchal, Alain. CNRS. Problèmes de sémantique et de syntaxe en Palau. Paris. Sciences du Langage. 1991 . 9782222045946. .
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External links
Notes and References
- The figure used here, for all countries, is from Ethnologue. According to the 2005 Palau Census, there are 18,544 people aged 5 years or older residing in the Republic of Palau, of whom 4,718 do not speak Palauan. There are thus an estimated 13,826 Palauan speakers in Palau as of 2005; the UNSD estimated 12,400 in Palau in 2008. This number does not include native Palauan speakers residing outside of Palau, who probably comprise several thousand additional speakers (4,000 according to Ethnologue). (See .)
- Katakana is no longer widely used, since the orthography based on Latin script has received official status and is taught in schools. But see .
- Blench, Roger. 2015. Early Oceanic contact with Palau: the evidence of fish names.
- Only 5 vowel phonemes are listed in because she avoids the issue of how to treat indeterminate underlying vowels. The vowel chart here tentatively reflects the analysis of, who treats indeterminate vowels as instances of underlying pronounced as /link/. Furthermore, the analysis of Palauan pronounced as /link/ in treats it as a phoneme distinct from pronounced as /link/, while pronounced as /link/ is merely an allophone of pronounced as /link/ according to . The consonant chart tentatively reflects Wilson's analysis.
- The final report of the Palau Orthography Committee was released as .
- [#PRG1975|Josephs 1975]
- [#dict1990|Josephs 1990]
- Note that some non-human animate plural nouns (animals) can stylistically inflect with the plural prefix re- if they are considered to be "sufficiently human" in some contexts, such as when talking about household pets that are like family members, or when anthropomorphized animal characters are described in stories. See .
- See,, and for arguments in favor of treating Palauan as VOS. cf. and, which assume an SVO order for Palauan. and provide clear and concise summaries of the debate and evidence in favor of the VOS analysis over the SVO analysis.
- See for a more comprehensive list of words and phrases.
- Palauan Language Online tekinged.com
Palau