Туамоту тілі: тарихы, дамуы және қазіргі жағдайы

Polynesian language native to French Polynesia

Little is known regarding the early history of the Tuamotus. It is believed that they were settled c. 700 AD by people from the Society Islands. Europeans first arrived in the islands in 1521, when Ferdinand Magellan reached them while sailing across the Pacific Ocean. Subsequent explorers visited the islands over the centuries, including Thor Heyerdahl, the famous Norwegian ethnographer who sailed the Kon Tiki expedition across the Pacific in 1947. The effects of early European visits were marginal as they had no political effects. The language, however, was ultimately affected by the Tahitian language, which was itself affected by European expansion. The eventual arrival of European missionaries in the 19th century also led to loanwords, including the creation of new vocabulary terms for the Pa‘umotu new found faith, and the translation of the Bible into Pa‘umotu. The original religion of the Tuamotus involved the worship of a higher being, Kiho Tumu or Kiho. Religious chants have been preserved and translated that describe the attributes of Kiho and how he created the world.

Paʻumotu is spoken among the atolls of the Tuamotu Archipelago, which amount to over 60 small islands. Many of the former inhabitants have moved to Tahiti, causing the language to dwindle. The native Pa‘umotu people are somewhat nomadic, shifting from one atoll to another and thereby creating a wide variety of dialects. The natives refer to this nomadic tendency as orihaerenoa, from the root words ori (meaning 'to wander around'), haere (meaning 'to go') and noa (meaning 'non restriction'). Indeed, since before the 1960s, many of the Tuamotu islanders have migrated to Tahiti for education or work opportunities;

Since the 1950s, the only language used in education in French Polynesia was French. No Tahitian or Pa‘umotu is taught in schools. The Pa‘umotu language is being monitored by a dedicated regulatory body, called , or Kāruru vānaga. It was created in 2008, following the model of Académie tahitienne.

No systematic grammar has been published on the Pa‘umotu language. Current Tahitian Pa‘umotu orthographies are based upon the Tahitian Bible and the Tahitian translation of the Book of Mormon.

Naturally, a lot of similarity between other Polynesian languages can be seen in the vocabulary of Paʻumotu. 'Woman', for example, is vahine, very close to the Hawaiian and Maori wahine. Another example is 'thing', which in Paʻumotu is mea, and is the same in Samoan and Maori. Paʻumotu speakers utilize fast deliberate speech, slow deliberate speech, and normal speech patterns. They apply phrase stress, which can be phonemic or morphemic, and primary stress, which is not phonemic.