The Rapa Nui language (also Rapanui) is an Eastern Polynesian language spoken on Easter Island. It forms its own subgroup within that classification: this means that Rapa Nui on one hand and Central Eastern Polynesian (the Marquesic languages, Rapan and the Tahitic languages) on the other, comprise the whole of Eastern Polynesian.

Within Eastern Polynesian, it is closest to Marquesan morphologically, although its phonology has more in common with that of New Zealand Māori. It is spoken by the Rapa Nui, the inhabitants of Easter Island. A Tahitian man brought by Captain James Cook was said to be able to communicate with the locals.

Rapa Nui has the distinction of being the only language in Oceania to have been committed to writing prior to the arrival of Christian missionaries in the 17th century, albeit some (including Jared Diamond) believe the idea of writing to have spread there earlier through European contact. The unique (to date undeciphered) script is called Rongorongo (Rongo-rongo).

Features

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Like all Polynesian languages, Rapa Nui has relatively few consonants. Unusually for an Eastern Polynesian language, Rapa Nui has preserved the original glottal stop of Proto-Polynesian. It is a VSO language.

Books

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The most important recent book written about the language of Rapa Nui is Verónica du Feu's Rapanui (Descriptive Grammar) (ISBN 0415000114).

External links

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• An online Rapa Nui-English/English-Rapa Nui dictionary from Rongorongo.org
• Rapa Nui legends and traditions, both in Rapa Nui and in English, also from Rongorongo.org
• Easter Island Foundation's Rapa Nui Glossary
• Miki Makihara (Queens College), has several papers on contemporary Rapa Nui language and language revival efforts

Easter Island | Polynesian languages | Languages of Chile

Rapanui | Idioma rapanui | Rapanui | Język rapanui | Rapanuin kieli