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Palauan language
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Palauan (also spelled Belauan) is one of the two nationally recognized official languages spoken in the Republic of Palau (the second being English). It is a member of the Austronesian family of languages, and is considered to be one of two languages in Micronesia (the second being Chamorro) belonging to the Western Malayo-Polynesian group, all others are considered to be members of either the Micronesian or Polynesian outlier subgroups of Eastern Malayo-Polynesian.
SoundsThe phonemic inventory of Palauan consists of 10 consonants and 6 vowels. Phonetic charts of the vowel and consonant phonemes are provided below, utilizing the .
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Consonant Phonemes| | Labial | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | Voiceless
stops | | | | Voiced
stops | | | | | Voiceless
fricatives | | | | | Nasals | | | | | Liquids | | | | | |
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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 (the phonemic inventory of vowels, above, is complete).
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DiphthongsPalauan 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 .
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The extent to which it is accurate to characterize each of these vowel sequences as diphthongs has been a matter of debate, as in , , , . Nevertheless, a number of the sequences above, such as , 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 SystemIn the early 1970s, the Palau Orthography Committee worked with linguists from the University of Hawaii to devise a common writing system based on the Latin alphabet. The resulting orthography was largely based on the "one sound/one symbol" notion of the pre-Chomskyan structuralists, yielding an alphabet of ten native Palauan consonants (plus two double consonants), five consonants used exclusively in borrowed words, and five vowels (plus four double vowels). The 20 vowel sequences listed above under the heading Diphthongs are also all officially recognized in the orthography.
On May 10, 2007, the passed , which mandates that educational institutions recognize the Palauan orthography laid out in and . 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.
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Foreign Consonants| Palauan Letter | IPA Pronunciation(s) | Example Word | f | | fenda "fender (Eng.)" | h | | haibio "tuberculosis (Jap. haibyoo)" | n | | sensei "teacher (Jap. sensei)" | p | | Papa "the Pope (Span. Papa)" | ts | | tsuingam "chewing gum (Eng.)" | z | | miuzium "museum (Eng.)" |
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Vowels| Palauan Letter | IPA Pronunciation(s) | Example Word | a | | chad "person" | e | | sers "garden" | ee | | kmeed "near" | i | | sils "sun" | ii | | iis "nose" | o | | ngor "mouth" | oo | | sekool "playful" | u | | bung "flower" | uu | | ngduul "mangrove clam" |
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SyntaxWord OrderThe 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. 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 Alan. (means: "Alan 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 for discussion.
Palauan PhrasesSome common and useful words and phrases in Palauan are listed below, with their English translations.
| Palauan | English |
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| Alii! | Hello! | | Ungil tutau. | Good morning. | | Ungil sueleb. | Good afternoon. | | Ungil kebesengei. | Good evening. | | A ngklek a ___. | My name is ___. | | Ng techa ngklem? | What's your name? | | Ke ua ngerang? | How are you? | | Ak mesisiich. | I'm fine. | | Ak chad er a ___. | I'm from ___. | | Belau | Palau | | Merikel | U.S.A. | | Ingklis | England | | Siabal | Japan | | Sina | China | | Ke chad er ker el beluu? | Where are you from? | | Ke mlechell er ker el beluu? | Where were you born? | | Ak mlechell er a ___. | I was born in ___. | | Ng tela rekim? | How old are you? | | Ng ___ a rekik. | I am ___ years old. | | Ng tela a dengua er kau? | What's your phone number? | | A dengua er ngak a ___. | My phone number is ___. | | Ke kiei er ker? | Where do you live? | | Ak kiei er a ___. | I live ___. | | Chochoi. | Yes | | Ng diak. | No | | Adang. | Please. | | Sulang. | Thank you. | | Ke mo er ker? | Where are you going? | | Mechikung. | Goodbye. |
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