Palauan
Native to	Palau, Guam Northern Mariana Islands
Native speakers	14,000 in Palau  (2005 census)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian (MP) Nuclear MP Sunda–Sulawesi ? Palauan
Writing system	Latin, katakana[2]
Official status
Official language in	Palau
Language codes
ISO 639-2	pau
ISO 639-3	pau
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Palauan (also spelled Belauan) is one of the two official languages of the Republic of Palau, the other being English. It is a member of the Austronesian family of languages, and is one of only two indigenous languages in Micronesia that is not part of the Oceanic branch of that family, the other being Chamorro.

Classification [edit]

Palauan is not a Micronesian or Polynesian language like most of its neighbors; rather, like Chamorro, it constitutes a possibly independent branch of the Malayo-Polynesian languages. Its origins are thus somewhat obscure. A 2008 analysis of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database^[3] suggested at 85% confidence level that it is closest to the Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages.

Sounds [edit]

The phonemic inventory of Palauan consists of 10 consonants and 6 vowels.^[4] Phonetic charts of the vowel and consonant phonemes are provided below, utilizing the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

While the phonemic inventory of Palauan is relatively small, comparatively, many phonemes contain at least two allophones that surface as the result of various phonological processes within the language. The full phonetic inventory of consonants is given below in IPA (the phonemic inventory of vowels, above, is complete).

Diphthongs [edit]

Palauan contains several diphthongs (sequences of vowels within a single syllable). A list of diphthongs and corresponding Palauan words containing them are given below, adapted from (Zuraw 2003).

The extent to which it is accurate to characterize each of these vowel sequences as diphthongs has been a matter of debate, as in (Wilson 1972), (Flora 1974), (Josephs 1975), (Zuraw 2003). Nevertheless, a number of the sequences above, such as /ui/, clearly behave as diphthongs given their interaction with other aspects of Palauan phonology like stress shift and vowel reduction. Others do not behave as clearly like monosyllabic diphthongs.

Writing system [edit]

In the early 1970s, the Palau Orthography Committee worked with linguists from the University of Hawaii to devise an alphabet based on the Latin script.^[5] The resulting orthography was largely based on the "one phoneme/one symbol" notion, producing an alphabet of twelve native consonants, six consonants for use in loan words, and ten vowels. The 20 vowel sequences listed above under the heading Diphthongs are also all officially recognized in the orthography.

On May 10, 2007, the Palauan Senate passed Bill No. 7-79, which mandates that educational institutions recognize the Palauan orthography laid out in (Josephs 1997) and (Josephs 1999). The bill also establishes an Orthography Commission to maintain the language as it develops as well as to oversee and regulate any additions or modifications to the current official orthography.

Syntax [edit]

Word order [edit]

The word order of Palauan is usually thought to be verb–object–subject (VOS), but this has been a matter of some debate in the linguistic literature.^[6] Those who accept the VOS analysis of Palauan word order generally treat Palauan as a pro-drop language with preverbal subject agreement morphemes, final pronominal subjects are deleted (or null).

Example 1: Ak milenga er a ringngo pro. (means: "I ate the apple.")

In the preceding example, the null pronoun pro is the subject "I," while the clause-initial ak is the first person singular subject agreement morpheme.

On the other hand, those who have analyzed Palauan as SVO necessarily reject the pro-drop analysis, instead analyzing the subject agreement morphemes as subject pronouns. In the preceding example, SVO-advocates assume that there is no pro and that the morpheme ak is simply an overt subject pronoun meaning "I." One potential problem with this analysis is that it fails to explain why overt (3rd person) subjects occur clause-finally in the presence of a co-referring 3rd person "subject pronoun" --- treating the subject pronouns as agreement morphemes circumvents this weakness. Consider the following example.

Example 2: Ng milenga er a ringngo a Olilai. (means: "Olilai ate the apple.")

Proponents of the SVO analysis must assume a shifting of the subject a Alan "Alan" from clause-initial to clause-final position, a movement operation that has not received acceptance cross-linguistically, but see (Josephs 1975) for discussion.

Palauan phrases [edit]

Some common and useful words and phrases in Palauan are listed below, with their English translations.^[7]

Palauan numerals [edit]

1 through 10

1. Tang
2. Cherung
3. Chedei
4. Cheuang
5. Cheiim
6. Chelolm
7. Cheuid
8. Cheiai
9. Chetiu
10. Machod

Palauans have different numbers for different reasons. For example, to count people it is: Chimong, Teblong, Tedei, Teuang, Teim.

Palauan Dictionary

References [edit]

External links [edit]

• "Ethnologue report for language code:pau". Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Retrieved 5 September 2005. 
• "A Palauan Linguistic Bibliography". Retrieved 9 February 2008. 
• "Airai, Palau: Language". Retrieved 12 October 2007. 
• "République de Belau" (in French). Retrieved 20 June 2007. 
• "PREL - Pacific Area Language Materials: Palauan". Retrieved 9 February 2008. 
• "Japanese and Other Loanwords in Palauan". Retrieved 3 February 2008.