Hur odlar du tahitian
He also published a grammar and a dictionary of that language. For example, pāto , meaning 'to pick, to pluck' and pato , 'to break out', are distinguished solely by their vowel length.
Many of these were "non-geographic" or "ghost islands" of Polynesian mythology and all were transcribed using phonetic English spelling. When two vowels follow each other in a V 1 V 2 sequence, they form a diphthong when V 1 is more open, and as a consequence more sonorant, than V 2. See Typography below. It does not indicate a different pronunciation. In all these words, the last two vowels are identical, and are separated by a glottal stop.
Tahitian syllables are entirely open , as is usual in Polynesian languages. Aboard the Endeavour , Lt. James Cook and the ship's master, Robert Molyneux, transcribed the names of 72 and 55 islands respectively as recited by the Tahitian arioi , Tupaia.
How to Speak the Tahitian Language
Notably, the consonant inventory lacks any sort of phonemic dorsal consonants. Heavy syllables always bear secondary stress. Stress is predictable in Tahitian. This is typical of Polynesian languages compare to the Hawaiian ʻokina and others. Finally there is a toro ʼaʼï , a trema put on the i , but only used in ïa when used as a reflexive pronoun.
Tahitian is the most prominent of the indigenous Polynesian languages spoken in French Polynesia reo māʼohi. Usage of this diacritic was promoted by academics but has now virtually disappeared, mostly because there is no difference in the quality of the vowel when the trema is used and when the macron is used.
Tahitian makes a phonemic distinction between long and short vowels; long vowels are marked with macron or tārava. John Davies's spelling book was the first book to be printed in the Tahitian language. Reports by some early European explorers including Quirós [5] include attempts to transcribe notable Tahitian words heard during initial interactions with the indigenous people of Marquesa. It belongs to the Eastern Polynesian group.
Intervening syllables prevent this dissimilation, so te mata 'eye' is never pronounced with a [k]. The word tiuno 'June' may be pronounced [ti. There is another type of words whose stress pattern requires another rule to explain. Other syllables are considered to be light. It always falls on one of the final three syllables of a word, and relies on the distinction between heavy and light syllables. The glottal stop or ʼeta is a genuine consonant.
These include mutaʼa 'first', tiaʼa 'shoe', ariʼi 'king', all of which are stressed on the antepenultimate syllable. However, if there is a long vowel or diphthong in the last syllable, that syllable receives main stress. However, macrons are seldom written among older people because Tahitian writing was not taught at school until In rapid speech, the common article te is pronounced with a schwa, as [tə].
When Europeans first arrived in Tahiti at the end of the 18th century, there was no writing system and Tahitian was only a spoken language. As Tahitian had no written tradition before the arrival of the Western colonists, the spoken language was first transcribed by missionaries of the London Missionary Society in the early 19th century. One can posit that in such words, the last syllable is extrametrical , and does not count towards stress assignment.
Tahitian features a very small number of phonemes : five vowels and nine consonants, not counting the lengthened vowels and diphthongs.
Two vowels with the same sonority are generally pronounced in hiatus, as in [no. In compound words, each morpheme's stressed syllable carries secondary stress, and the stressed syllable of the last morpheme carries primary stress.
Syllables with diphthongs or with long vowels are both considered to be heavy. If there is a long vowel in the antepenultimate syllable, and the penultimate syllable is light, the antepenultimate syllable receives main stress. A system of five vowels and nine consonants was adopted for the Tahitian Bible, which would become the key text by which many Polynesians would learn to read and write.
Thus, every Tahitian content word is at least two moras long.