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Tokelauan language

Tokelauan
gagana Tokelau
Native toTokelau, Swains Island (American Samoa, United States)
EthnicityTokelauans
Native speakers
1,200 in Tokelau (2020)[1]
2,500 in New Zealand (2013 census)[1]
Official status
Official language in
 Tokelau
Language codes
ISO 639-2tkl
ISO 639-3tkl
Glottologtoke1240
ELPTokelauan
Tokelauan is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2010)

Tokelauan (/toʊkəˈlaʊən/)[2] is a Polynesian language spoken in Tokelau and historically by the small population of Swains Island (or Olohega) in American Samoa. It is closely related to Tuvaluan and is related to Samoan and other Polynesian languages. Tokelauan has a co-official status with English in Tokelau. There are approximately 4,260 speakers of Tokelauan, of whom 2,100 live in New Zealand, 1,400 in Tokelau, and 17 in Swains Island. "Tokelau" means "north-northeast".[3]

Loimata Iupati, Tokelau's resident Director of Education, has stated that he is in the process of translating the Bible from English into Tokelauan. While many Tokelau residents are multilingual, Tokelauan was the language of day-to-day affairs in Tokelau until at least the 1990s,[4] and is spoken by 88% of Tokelauan residents.[5] Of the 4600 people who speak the language, 1600 of them live in the three atolls of Tokelau – Atafu, Nukunonu and Fakaofo. Approximately 3000 people in New Zealand speak Tokelauan, and the rest of the known Tokelauan speakers are spread across Australia, Hawaii, and the West Coast of the United States.[6] The Tokelauan language closely resembles its more widely spoken and close genealogical relative, Samoan; the two maintain a degree of mutual intelligibility.[7]

  1. ^ a b Tokelauan at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. ^ Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student's Handbook, Edinburgh
  3. ^ "Culture of Tokelau - history, people, clothing, traditions, women, beliefs, food, family, social". www.everyculture.com. Retrieved 2017-02-28.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference hooperhuntsman92 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ "Profile of Tokelau: 2016 Tokelau Census of Population and Dwellings" (PDF). Tokelau National Statistics Office and Stats NZ. 2017. p. 25. Retrieved 16 November 2020.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ "Ethnology of Tokelau Islands". Victoria University of Wellington.

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