Tahitian
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Fact corner
- Language: Tahitian
- Alternate names: -
- SIL-code: Ethnologue:tah
- Language family: Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Central-Eastern, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian,
Oceanic, Central-Eastern Oceanic, Remote Oceanic, Central Pacific, East Fijian-Polynesian, Polynesian, Nuclear, East, Central, Tahitic - Number of speakers: 124,262
- Script: Latin script
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Introduction
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Tahitian, a Tahitic language, is one of the two official languages of French Polynesia (along with French). It is an Eastern Polynesian language closely related to Rarotongan, New Zealand Māori, and Hawaiian.
Tahitian relies on the use of "helper words" (such as prepositions, articles, and particles) to encode grammatical relationships, rather than on inflection, as would be typical of European languages. It is practically an isolating language, except when it comes to the personal pronouns, which have separate forms for singular, plural and dual numbers.
The verb
Sample verb: amu
amu, to eat
| Sg.1 | `ua 'amu au |
| Sg.2 | `ua 'amu 'oe |
| Sg.3 | `ua 'amu 'ōna |
| Du.1, inclusive | 'ua amu tāua |
| Du.1, exclusive | 'ua amu māua |
| Du.2 | 'ua amu 'ōrua |
| Du.3 | 'ua amu rāua |
| Pl.1, inclusive | 'ua amu tātou |
| Pl.1, exclusive | 'ua amu mātou |
| Pl.2 | 'ua amu 'outou |
| Pl.3 | 'ua amu rātou |
External links
- Tahitian grammar(approve sites)