According to census data,[4] there are 9,399 people (on both the island and the Chilean mainland) who identify as ethnically Rapa Nui.

One of the most important recent books written about the language of Rapa Nui is Verónica du Feu's Rapanui (Descriptive Grammar) (ISBN 0-415-00011-4).

Due to extensive borrowing from Tahitian there now often exist two forms for what was the same word in the early language.

For example, Rapa Nui has Tahitian ʻite alongside original tikeꞌa for 'to see', both derived from Proto-Eastern Polynesian *kiteʻa.

There are also hybridized forms of words such as hakaꞌite 'to teach', from native haka (causative prefix) and Tahitian ʻite.

According to archaeologist José Miguel Ramírez "more than a dozen Mapuche - Rapa Nui cognates have been described", chiefly by Sebastian Englert.

Eventually the Bishop of Tahiti caused a public outcry and an embarrassed Peru rounded up the few survivors to return them.

A shipload headed to Rapa Nui, but smallpox broke out en route and only 15 arrived at the island.

[citation needed] William J. Thomson, paymaster on the USS Mohican, spent twelve days on Rapa Nui from 19 to 30 December 1886.

[11] Englert recorded vowel length, stress, and glottal stop, but was not always consistent, or perhaps the misprints make it seem so.

A version of Rapanui interspersed with Spanish nouns, verbs and adjectives has become a popular form of casual speech.

[DF 1] Spanish words such as problema (problem), which was once rendered as poroporema, are now often integrated with minimal or no change.

Rapa Nui is the only Eastern Polynesian language to have preserved the original glottal stop *ʔ of Proto-Polynesian.

In electronic texts, the glottal plosive /ʔ/ may be written with a (always lower-case) saltillo ⟨ꞌ⟩ to avoid the problems of using the punctuation mark ⟨'⟩.

[PK 1] A special letter, ⟨ġ⟩, is sometimes used to distinguish the Spanish /ɡ/, occurring in introduced terms, from the Rapa Nui /ŋ/.

[PK 1] The reduplication of whole nouns or syllable parts performs a variety of different functions within Rapa Nui.

For example: Besides forming adjectives from nouns, the reduplication of whole words can indicate a multiple or intensified action.

In this example the bolded section represents the reduplication of two final syllables, indicating intensity or emphasis: Rapa Nui incorporates a number of loanwords from other languages.

[PK 1] Full words occur in the head of the phrase and are mostly open classes (exceptions like locationals exist).

They can also co-occur with other determiners, like articles in this example: teARTkonaplaceharehouseeraDISTte kona hare eraART place house DIST'home' [R210.021][PK 3]Postnominal demonstratives can be used deictically or anaphorically.

[PK 5] Te N era can also be used to refer to entities which are generally known, or presumed to be present in context.

The pronouns are always ahead of the person singular (PRS) a and relational particle (RLT) i or dative (DAT) ki.

[DF 13] ESTAtunucookau1sgiRLTte+SPEkaifoodmoBENꞌakuPOS.1sg.ALIENgaGRPpokichildkoPRFmaruakihungryꞌaRESE tunu au i te kai mo ꞌaku ga poki ko maruaki ꞌaSTA cook 1sg RLT +SPE food BEN POS.1sg.ALIEN GRP child PRF hungry RES'I must cook dinner for my children who are hungry'[DF 14]poki (children) is an alienable possession therefore ꞌa is used to indicate that in this sentence, therefore the possessive pronoun ꞌaꞌ[clarification needed][the original was not possible Rapa Nui, but this doesn't match the example] is used instead of ꞌoꞌoku.

Clausal negators occur in the same position as aspect markers and subordinators—this means it is impossible for these elements to co-occur.

[R352.070][PK 17]In the example above ꞌina is followed by the combination of he + maꞌeha (noun) ꞌInaNEGheNTRtakeꞌaseerahimany/muchiACCteARTtagatamanꞌIna he takeꞌa rahi i te tagataNEG NTR see many/much ACC ART man'He did not see many people.'

[PK 30] ꞌIIMMau1SGheNTRohogorōEMPHꞌaiSUBSmaifromtaꞌeCONNEGpōnightꞌI au he oho rō ꞌai mai taꞌe pōIMM 1SG NTR go EMPH SUBS from CONNEG night'I'm going now, before it gets dark.'

[PK 25] ꞌInaNEGkoNEG.IPFVohogokitoteARTtētahisome/otherkonaplaceꞌIna ko oho ki te tētahi konaNEG NEG.IPFV go to ART some/other place'Don't go to another place.'

He hakahu koe iRL.PTCte ramaOBJHe hakahu koe i te rama{} {} {} RL.PTC {} OBJ"You light the torch"Where a verb of sensing is used, the subject is marked by the agentive particle e. He tikea eAG.PTCauSBJte poki He tikea e au te poki{} {} AG.PTC SBJ {} {}"I can see the child"Spatial deictics is also present in Rapa Nui, in the form of two directionals: mai and atu.

They can only appear in certain syntactic contexts, listed here: Overall, their main function is to provide nuance to the aspectual marker they are being used alongside.

[PK 41] ACT:action LIM:limitative PPD:postpositive determinant PRS:person singular RLT:relational particle STA:state (verbal) TOW:towards subject EMP:emphasis GRP:group plural RES:resultative PROX:proximal demonstrative PRED:predicate marker NTR:neutral aspect PROP:proper article SUBS:subsequent CONNEG:constituent negator