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Tokelauan was a commonly spoken language until about twenty years ago. The language is spoken by approximately 5000 people. Of the 5000 people who speak the language, 1600 of them live in the three atolls of Tokelau - Atafu, Nukunono 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. The Tokelauan language closely resembles the Samoan language.

Orthography:

The Tokelauan aphabet is phonemic, except for long vowels that are not differentiated orthographically by most Tokelauan writers.

The language does not heavily rely on the use of macron’s to lengthen their vowels.

There are some phonetic similarities between sounds in the language, such as /h/ and /f/, which results in some variation in orthographic practice. For example, toha and tofa both mean goodbye but can be pronounced differently.

The sounds for h, s f and wh can all be used interchangeably.

There are two dialects in Polynesia, which has shaped the Tokelauan language to sound how it does. The h and wh sounds are from the older dialect, while the f and s sounds are from the newer one.

The fact that all these sounds are interchangeable regardless of when it arrived at the islands suggests that no one dialect surpassed the other.

Although Tokelauan is closely related to the Samoan language, there is a distinct difference between their pronunciation of words. For example, Samoan words containing the k sound can sound like g with words such as hiki often mistakenly heard as higi. Tokelauan language does not allow the k’s to drop.

Morphology:

There are four main classes of lexemes in the Tokelauan language, and are as follows:

1.) Noun - A lexeme formed directly after a determiner or possessive pronoun to create a noun phrase

• Can only function as nouns. Pronouns are a subset of nouns, so they can’t be combined with determiners.
  • He loi - an ant
  • Tona vaka - his canoe

2.) Verb - A lexeme that comes directly after a verbal particle and expresses tense or aspect.

• ka - future
• ka fano - will go
• koi - present continuous
• Koi ola - still alive
• A few lexemes are used only as a verb and don’t attach to form a different phrase - ex. Galo = be lost, disappear

3.) Locative - A lexeme that forms directly after the preposition (i, ki, or mai), without an additional determiner

• luga - above
• lalo - beneath
• loto - inside
• Place names and months have some characteristics of locatives

4.) Small class of “other” lexemes that don’t fit into the other three classes

• ananafi - yesterday
• āpō - yesterday
• ātaeao - tomorrow morning

Majority of the lexemes can be used in both position 1 & 2, meaning they can function as nouns and verbs, depending on the context.

Phrases:

Fakafeiloaki – Greetings

Mālo ni! – Hello

Ulu tonu mai – Welcome

E fakafeiloaki atu – We greet you

Fakafetai – Thank you

Tōfā ni – Good bye.

Numbers:

tahi – 1

lua – 2

tolu – 3

fa – 4

lima – 5

ono – 6

fitu – 7

valu – 8

iva – 9

hefulu - 10

The Tokelauan language is a tenseless language. The language uses the same words for all three tenses; the phrase E liliu mai au i te Aho Tōnai literally translates to Come back / me / on Saturday, but the translation becomes ‘I am coming back on Saturday’.

Colors:

Red - Lanukukula

Orange -Lanu Moli

Yellow - Lanu Hehega

Green - Lanu Meamata

Blue - Lanu Moana

Purple - Lanu Violē

Pink - Lanu Piniki

Black - Lanu Uliuli

White - Lanu Paepae

Kinship Terminology:

The language has specific words for different members of the family, and some terms have multiple meanings. Foster child and adopted child are both Tama tauhi, while people, friends, and cousins all fall under the term tagata.

The Tokelauan language has three terms that describe same-sex and opposite-sex distinction, in terms of siblings, based on a Hawaiian-type system:

Sibling of own sex, male or female

Sibling of opposite sex, male

and

Sibling of opposite sex, female

The terms “mother’s brother,” “sister’s child,” and “father’s sister” are all marked terms.

In Tokelau, the term most closely translated to “incest” is holi kāiga which is made up of two words: holi meaning ‘to tread’ and also ‘to desecrate’ or ‘violate’. The word Kāiga means ‘kinship’. The term holi kāiga can be applied to not only a ‘desecration of kinship’ but in any cases that the order of kinship is changed, for example a child defying an elder. The most common use of the term, however, is used when speaking about the sexual contact between individuals.

Linguistically, the term kāiga has adjectival and nominal functions:

e kāiga ki mā ‘we two are related’

ko īa he kāiga e o oku ‘he/she is a kinsman of mine’

i nā aho iēnā nae hē lahi nā kāiga ‘in those days there were not many kingroups

When the word is used nominally, it may imply a diverse variety of social units that all have a shared ancestor.

The Tokelau languages contains terms for affinal relationships, however, there is no single word that can be transcribed as ‘affinity’. The term opposite of kāiga (‘kin’ or ‘related’) is he kāiga (‘not kin’ or ‘unrelated’), and that only those who are he kāiga should be wedded.

Violating the kinship relationship means breaching not only the current relationship but the whole kinship of all descendants. If Q & R were to get married, all relations from descendants of A & B would be disrupted.

http://www.learntokelau.co.nz/documents/TauGagana.pdf

Grammatical Number:

The Tokelauan language consists of three types of personal pronouns - 1st person, 2nd person inclusive, 2nd person exclusive, and 3rd person exclusive. The language consists of unique ways to address multiple people in one conversation. For example, the generic greeting for ‘Hello’ is Tālofa or Mālō. To greet one person, ‘greetings to you’ would be the same as the common greeting. To address two people, Tālofa nī/Mālō nī Fakatālofa atu kia te koulua; koulua is the dual third person term. To address three or more people, Fakatālofa atu kia te koutou; koutou is the plural third person term.