| Pa‘umotu | |
|---|---|
| Reo Pa’umotu Reko Pa’umotu | |
| Native to | French Polynesia |
| Region | Tuamotus,Tahiti |
| Ethnicity | 15,600 (2007 census?)[1] |
Native speakers | 4,000 in Tuamotu (2007 census)[2] many additional speakers in Tahiti[2] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | pmt |
| Glottolog | tuam1242 |
| ELP | Tuamotuan |
 Pa‘umotu is classified as Definitely Endangered by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger. | |
Tuamotuan,Pa’umotu orPaumotu (Tuamotuan:Reo Pa’umotu orReko Pa’umotu) is aPolynesian language spoken by 4,000 people in theTuamotu archipelago, with an additional 2,000 speakers inTahiti.[3]: 76
The Pa‘umotu people today refer to their islands as Tuamotu while referring to themselves and their language as Pa‘umotu (or Paumotu). Pa‘umotu is one of six Polynesian languages spoken in French Polynesia, the other five languages beingTahitian,Marquesan,Mangarevan,Rapa, andAustral.[3]
The Pa‘umotu alphabet is based on the Latin script.[4]
The language was particularly studied by anthropologistJohn Francis Stimson [fr] (1893–1958), and by linguistJean-Michel Charpentier [fr] (1943–2014).[3]
Little is known regarding the earlyhistory of the Tuamotus. It is believed that they were settledc. 700 AD by people from theSociety Islands. Europeans first arrived in the islands in 1521, whenFerdinand Magellan reached them while sailing across the Pacific Ocean. Subsequent explorers visited the islands over the centuries, includingThor Heyerdahl, the famous Norwegian ethnographer who sailed theKon-Tiki expedition across the Pacific in 1947.
The effects of early European visits were marginal as they had no political effects. The language, however, was ultimately affected by the Tahitian language, which was itself affected by European expansion. The eventual arrival of European missionaries in the 19th century also led toloanwords, including the creation of new vocabulary terms for the Pa‘umotu new-found faith, and the translation of the Bible into Pa‘umotu.[5]
The originalreligion of the Tuamotus involved the worship of a higher being,Kiho-Tumu or Kiho. Religious chants have been preserved and translated that describe the attributes of Kiho and how he created the world.[6]
In more recent times, the Tuamotus were the site ofFrench nuclear testing on the atolls ofMoruroa andFangataufa.
Paumotu is a member of thePolynesian group ofOceanic languages, itself a subgroup of theAustronesian family.[2]
Some foreign influence is present.[7]
Pa’umotu is spoken among the atolls of the Tuamotu Archipelago, which amount to over 60 small islands. Many of the former inhabitants have moved to Tahiti, causing the language to dwindle.[5]
In the 1970s, there were a number of Pa‘umotu living in Laie, O'ahu, Hawai'i, as well as other locations on the island of O'ahu. Some were reported to live in California and Florida. There were also a number of people living in New Zealand who were reportedly Pa‘umotu, although they came from Tahiti.[5]
Pa‘umotu has seven dialects or linguistic areas: covering Parata, Vahitu, Maraga, Fagatau, Tapuhoe, Napuka and Mihiro.[3][8] The native Pa‘umotu people are somewhat nomadic, shifting from one atoll to another and thereby creating a wide variety of dialects.[9] The natives refer to this nomadic tendency asorihaerenoa, from the root wordsori (meaning 'to wander around'),haere (meaning 'to go') andnoa (meaning 'non-restriction').[9]
Pa‘umotu is very similar toTahitian, and a considerable amount ofTahitianization has affected Pa‘umotu.[9][3]: 101–108 Primarily due to the political and economical dominance of Tahiti in the region, many Pa‘umotu (especially those from the Western atolls) are bilingual, speaking both Pa’umotu and Tahitian.[5] Many young Pa‘umotu who live on atolls nearer to Tahiti speak only Tahitian and no Pa‘umotu.
An example is the Pa’umotu use of a velar sound such ask org, which in Tahitian-Pa‘umotu (a blending of the languages) is rather a glottal stop. For example, the word for 'shark' in Pa’umotu ismago, but in the blending of the two languages it becomesma'o, dropping the voiced velar nasal consonantg. The same is true with words such asmatagi/mata'i andkoe/'oe.[9]
These differences in dialect lead to a split between "Old Pa‘umotu" and "New Pa‘umotu". Many younger Pa‘umotu do not recognize some words that their forebears used, such as the wordua for 'rain'.[citation needed] Younger Pa‘umotu use the wordtoiti for 'rain' in contemporary Pa‘umotu.
According toUNESCO, Pa’umotu is "definitelyendangered"[10] Indeed, since before the 1960s, many of the Tuamotu islanders have migrated to Tahiti for education or work opportunities;[3] thisrural flight has strongly contributed to the weakening of Pa’umotu, which is sometimes described as a "dying language".[11]
Since the 1950s, the only language used in education in French Polynesia was French. No Tahitian or Pa‘umotu is taught in schools.[12]
The Pa‘umotu language is being monitored by a dedicated regulatory body, calledAcadémie pa'umotu [fr], orKāruru vānaga.[13] It was created in 2008,[14] following the model ofAcadémie tahitienne.[15]
No systematic grammar has been published on the Pa‘umotu language. Current Tahitian-Pa‘umotu orthographies are based upon the Tahitian Bible and the Tahitian translation of the Book of Mormon.[5]
An available source for Pa‘umotu-English comparatives isThe cult of Kiho-Tumu, which contains Pa‘umotu religious chants and their English translation.[6]
| Labial | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ⟨g⟩ | ||
| Plosive | p | t | k | ʔ⟨ʻ⟩ | |
| Fricative | f v | h | |||
| Rhotic | r | ||||
The glottal stop is found in a large number ofTahitian loanwords. It is also found infree variation with/k/ and/ŋ/ in a number of words shared between Pa‘umotu and Tahitian. An epenthetic glottal stop may be found at the beginning of monophthong-initial words.[16]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o[17] | |
| Low | a |
Short vowels contrast with long vowels andvowel length is thereby phonemic. A number of non-identical vowel pairs appear in Pu'amotu, and long vowels are interpreted as pairs of identical vowels and written by doubling the vowels in all cases.[9] In non-stressed position, the distinction between long and short may be lost. The position of stress is predictable. Primary stress is on the penultimate vowel before ajuncture, with long vowels counting double and semi-vocalized vowels not counting as vowels. One out of every two or three vowels is stressed.. that is, the minimum domain for assigning stress is two vowels, and the maximum is three. When a long vowel is stressed, the stress falls on the entire vowel, regardless of which mora is penultimate, unless the long vowel is word-final. No more than one unstressed vowel/mora can occur in a row, but, when the first of two vowels is long, there is no stresses mora between them. Morphemes of a single short vowel cannot be stressed.[18]
Naturally, a lot of similarity between other Polynesian languages can be seen in the vocabulary of Pa’umotu. 'Woman', for example, isvahine, very close to the Hawaiian and Maoriwahine. Another example is 'thing', which in Pa’umotu ismea, and is the same in Samoan and Maori.
Pa’umotu speakers utilize fast deliberate speech, slow deliberate speech, and normal speech patterns. They apply phrase stress, which can be phonemic or morphemic, and primary stress, which is not phonemic.[19]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link){{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)