Каролинский язык Северных Марианских островов

Austronesian language of the Northern Mariana Islands

Carolinian is an Austronesian language originating in the Caroline Islands, but spoken in the Northern Mariana Islands. It is an official language (as well as English) of the Carolinian people. Carolinian is a threatened language according to the Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat), but available data is scarce. There are approximately 3,100 native speakers in the world. Carolinian has 95% lexical similarity with Satawalese, 88% with Woleaian and Puluwatese; 81% with Mortlockese; 78% with Chuukese, 74% with Ulithian.

The Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas occupies a chain of 14 islands in the Pacific, approximately 1,300 miles southeast of Japan. The total land areas are 183.5 square miles, and some islands are unpopulated. Most Carolinians live on Saipan, the largest island, though a very small island. Agrigan, is reported to be populated solely by Carolinians speaking Carolinian language. Carolinian language is more usually known as Saipan Carolinian, it was born from several languages in the Carolinian language continuum, due to a century of migration from the west Carolinian atolls to the Northern Marianas island of Saipan in 1815. Spoken mostly by the Carolinian people, Carolinian is the most closely related dialect to Satawalese, Woleaian, and Puluwatese languages. Nowadays, Carolinian is changing quickly due to English, which has dominated Micronesia since World War II. There are only a small percentage of Carolinian children left on Saipan who can confidently speak the traditional form of Carolinian.

The Carolinians use a wide range of experiences in selecting the alphabetic system they use. For example, many of the older Carolinians are at least familiar with German from the German occupation. Depending on these, people would often use umlaut diacritics for the writing some vowels. A German influence could also be detected in the writing of the coronal spirant /s/ as <sch>. However, other speakers use their knowledge of Chamorro orthography to write Carolinian. As Chamorro has three fewer phonemic vowels than Carolinian and does not include Carolinians distinctive vowel length, initial consonant gemination, or velarized labials, individual systems based on Chamorro contained many double meanings. However, other Carolinians based their spelling in English, no individual writer could make use of the system.