Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-54qdv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-09T19:38:13.388Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

English Loan-Words in Micronesian Languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Robert A. Hall Jr.
Robert A. Hall Jr.*
Affiliation:
Brown University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

During the 19th century, English was extensively used in Micronesia (the Carolines, Marshalls, and Gilberts) as the language of traders and missionaries. The former used primarily a sub-standard, pidginized English; their activity and linguistic influence lasted chiefly from the early part of the century through the 1890's. American missionary work began in the 1850's and 1860's, and lasted in some regions (Kusaie, the Marshalls) into the period of Japanese administration; the missionaries naturally used and tended to spread standard English. After the Carolines and Marshalls became German colonies, the German authorities did not encourage the use of Pidgin English, or establish it as an official lingua franca, as was done in New Guinea and the Bismarcks and Solomons; in fact, at least some effort was made to discourage its use. In the period of Japanese occupation, efforts were made to spread the use of Japanese as a lingua franca, and apparently Pidgin English has fallen into desuetude. Through missionary teaching of English, a few natives on almost every island in the Marshalls, and presumably in other island groups as well, know some standard English.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 21 , Issue 3-Part1: July-September , September 1945 , pp. 214 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © 1945 Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1 The use of Pidgin in this area during the 19th century is attested in scattered references and quotations in travelers' reports, such as F. Christian, The Caroline Islands (London, 1899). For general references concerning the use of English in pidginized form in the South Seas, cf. the chapter ‘Beach-la-Mar’ in J. E. Reinecke, Marginal Languages 727–71 (Yale University dissertation, 1937).

2 The historical data on which this and other statements in this paper are based are given in the volumes of the report of the Südsee-Expedition 1908–1910 (cf. below, fn. 5, for detailed listing), in Christian, op.cit., and in T. Yanaihara, Pacific Islands under Japanese Mandate (New York, 1940).

I am indebted to the Cross-Cultural Survey, of the Institute of Human Relations, Yale University, under the direction of Prof. G. P. Murdock, for the use of its materials and references, and to Dr. J. W. M. Whiting for assistance and suggestions.

3 Cf. Denkschrift über die Entwickelung der Schutzgebiete in Afrika und der Südsee, 1906/07, in Verhandlungen des Reichstags, XII. Legislaturperiode, I. Session, vol. 245 (Berlin, 1908): Anlagen zu den stenographischen Berichten, no. 622, no. 4117–26, Appendix E II, p. 4137.

4 Cf. Yanaihara, op.cit. 244.

5 The linguistic material has been obtained from the following sources:

The volumes entitled Ergebnisse der Südsee-Expedition 1908–1910, edited by G. Thilenius, Hamburg, 1917 ff., including the following:

Series I: Allgemeines. Tagebuch der Expedition. 1927.

Series II.B, volumes II. W. Müller: Yap (1918; 2 vols.); III. A. Kramer: Palau (1917–19–26–29; 5 vols.); IV. E. Sarfert: Kusae (1919; 2 vols.); V. A. Kramer: Truk (1932); VI. A. Kramer (vol. i); H. Damm, P. Hambruch, and E. Sarfert (vol. ii): Inseln um Truk (1935; 2 vols.); VII. P. Hambruch: Ponape (1932–36; 3 vols.); VIII. A. Eilers: Inseln um Ponape (1934); IX. A. Eilers: Westkarolinen (1935–36); X. A. Kramer: Zentralkarolinen (1937–38; 2 vols.); XI. A. Kramer and H. Nevermann: Ralik—Ratak (Marshall-Inseln) (1938).

Also the following material:

A. Erdland: Die Marshall-Insulaner. Münster, 1914. (Anthropos Ethnologische Bibliothek [AEB] 1.1.)

A. Erdland: Worterbuch und Grammatik der Marshall-Sprache, Archiv für das Studium deutscher Kolonialsprachen 4.1–247 (1906).

A. Senfft: Wörterverzeichniss der Sprache der Marshall-Insulaner, Zeitschrift für afrikanische und ozeanische Sprachen 5.79–157 (1900).

L. Gulick: A vocabulary of the Ponape dialect, JAOS 10.1–109 (1871).

M. Girschner: Grammatik der Ponape-Sprache, Mitteilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen zu Berlin (Ostasiatische Studien) (MSOS) 9.73–126 (1906).

J. Kubary: Beitrag zur Kenntnis der Nukuoro- oder Monteverde-Inseln, Mitteilungen der geographischen Gesellschaft zu Hamburg, vol. 16 (1900).

L. Bollig: Die Bewohner der Truk-Inseln. Münster, 1927. (AEB 3.1.)

S. Walleser: Grammatik der Palausprache, MSOS 14.121–232 (1911).

S. Walleser: Palau Worterbuch. Hongkong, 1913; 2 vols.

6 Naturally, this list cannot claim to be complete or exhaustive. In the first place, some of the words may have gone out of use or may have been replaced by Japanese words in the years since 1915. Furthermore, the compilers of the vocabularies varied widely in the extent to which they paid attention to innovations such as English borrowings. This is exemplified strikingly in the two Marshall vocabularies of Erdland and Senfft. Erdland, a missionary interested chiefly in discovering relics of the older culture and preserving archaic native words, gives about eight or ten English loan-words; Senfft, a district official who simply recorded what he heard in every-day speech, lists well over a hundred.

The languages of the Gilbert Islands have not been included in this discussion, as material on them was not available. Their cultural contact with English speakers has been much more intense (the islands were claimed as protectorates by Great Britain in 1892), and the influence of English has probably been much stronger than in the rest of Micronesia.

7 The abbreviations used in referring to the various languages are: Ka = Kapingamarangi; Ku = Kusaie; Ma = Marshall; Me = Merir; Mo = Mokil; N = Nukuoro; Nga = Ngatik; Ngu = Ngulu; Pa = Palau; Pi = Pingelap; Po = Ponape; Pu = Pur; O = Onoun; S = Songosor; To = Tobi; Tr = Truk; Y = Yap.

The transcriptions used are those given in the various sources; they are in general based on the Lepsius alphabet, which was widely used in transcribing German colonial languages. The symbol ä represents [æ]; j, dj or tj represents [t∫] or [dʒ]. In general, there is no phonemic contrast between voiced and unvoiced consonants, the former occurring intervocalically and the latter in other positions, although European observers noted these variants more or less haphazardly. In some words, the graph ei probably stands for [ai], under the influence of standard German orthography: thus in Tr keikei ‘food’, Ma wein ‘wine’.

Certain words of Polynesian or other origin (kaikai, kanaka, papaya, tainam) are included under the English etyma, as they probably entered the Micronesian languages through Pidgin English.

9 Except only Yap and Palau, which have the Indonesian word for ‘pig’, in the forms vavi and bábi respectively.