Eastern Polynesian languages

The dozen Eastern Polynesian languages are found on Pacific Islands from Hawaii in the north, to New Zealand in the southwest, to Easter Island in the southeast. Included in this group of Polynesian languages are Hawaiian, Marquesan, Tuamotuan, Tahitian, Māori, and Rapa Nui.

The two most important languages of the group by number of speakers are Tahitian and Māori; Tahitian is the main language of the Society Islands, and is used as a lingua franca throughout much of French Polynesia, while Māori is spoken by a sizable minority in New Zealand, where it shares official status with English. Hawaiian is spoken by few people, but has official status in the State of Hawaii.

Languages

An exclusive relationship between the languages is fully supported by an analysis of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database (2008).^[1] However, the database does not support the traditional clades^[2] of Marquesic and Tahitic languages within Eastern Polynesian: The Marquesan and Mangarevan languages are only linked with an 80% probability, whereas Hawaiian, traditionally also considered Marquesic, is shown to be Tahitic. (Hawaii was settled originally from the Marquesas, and later from Tahiti, which may have confounded the analysis.) Rapa Nui, traditionally considered the most divergent Eastern Polynesian language, is fully supported as a member, even weakly linked (53%) with the Marquesic languages.

• Rapa Nui language, spoken on Easter Island
• reduced Marquesic ?
  • Marquesan languages of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia
  • Mangarevan, spoken in the Gambier Islands (also in French Polynesia)
• expanded Tahitic (incl. Hawaiian)
  • Tuamotuan, spoken throughout the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia, with the exception of Puka-Puka and the Disappointment Islands
  • Rarotongan, spoken in the southern Cook Islands
  • Tongarevan-Tahitic
    • Penrhyn (or Tongarevan), spoken on Penrhyn (Tongareva) in the northern Cook Islands
    • Nuclear Tahitic
      • Māori and the extinct Moriori, of the Chatham Islands
      • Hawaiian
      • Tahitian and Austral (Rurutuan and Tubuaian), spoken in the Austral Islands

The erstwhile Marquesic Pukapukan language, spoken in Puka-Puka and the Disappointment Islands in northeastern Tuamotu and the ungrouped Rapan language, spoken on Rapa Iti in the Austral Islands, were not included in the database.

References

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