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Tuvalu

‘Gana Tuvalu

Tuvalu is an Austronesian language spoken in Tuvalu, New Zealand, Fiji, and Kiribati, by about 13 thousand people. Glottolog rates it threatened.

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Tuvalu · 8.5°S 179.2°E

Tuvaluan (Te Ggana Tuuvalu) is a Polynesian language of the Ellicean group native to Tuvalu. It is more or less distantly related to all other Polynesian languages, such as Hawaiian, Māori, Tahitian, Samoan, Tokelauan and Tongan, and most closely related to the languages spoken on the Polynesian Outliers in Micronesia and Northern and Central Melanesia. Tuvaluan has borrowed considerably from Samoan, the language of Christian missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The population of Tuvalu is approximately 10,645 people (2017 Mini Census), but there are estimated to be more than 13,000 Tuvaluan speakers worldwide. In 2015, it was estimated that more than 3,500 Tuvaluans live in New Zealand, with about half that number born in New Zealand and 65 percent of the Tuvaluan community in New Zealand is able to speak Tuvaluan.

From Wikipedia · Tuvaluan language · CC BY-SA 4.0

Words in Tuvalu

MeaningWordRomanization
mantagata
womanfafine
nameigoa
eartaliga
watervai
leaflau
dogkuli
onetahi
twolua
threetolu
fourfa
fivelima
tensefulu
Iau
coffeekofe
housefale
booktusi
redkula
whitetea

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Vocabulary

Grammar

Vocabulary compares 40 basic words (ASJP); grammar compares 195 features (Grambank). Similar is not always related.

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Glottolog · tuva1244 · Wikipedia (English) · Ethnologue · tvl