Tuvaluan has borrowed considerably from Samoan, the language of Christian missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
[3][4] The population of Tuvalu is approximately 10,645 people (2017 Mini Census),[5] but there are estimated to be more than 13,000 Tuvaluan speakers worldwide.
Gilbertese is spoken natively on Nui, and was important to Tuvaluans when its colonial administration was located in the Gilbert Islands.
During an intense period of colonization throughout Oceania in the nineteenth century, the Tuvaluan language was influenced by Samoan missionary-pastors.
The ability to speak English is important for foreign communications and is often the language used in business and governmental settings.
English is the only language from which loanwords are currently being borrowed – loans from Samoan and Gilbertese have already been adapted to fit Tuvaluan phonology.
The table below, adapted from Jackson's An Introduction to Tuvaluan, outlines the main markers, although there are also negative and imperative derivatives.
Jackson lists six ways it can function: filemu‘peaceful, quiet’→ fifilemu‘to be very peaceful, quiet’filemu → fifilemu{‘peaceful, quiet’} {} {‘to be very peaceful, quiet’}fakalogo‘to listen carefully, obey’→ fakalogologo‘to listen casually’fakalogo → fakalogologo{‘to listen carefully, obey’} {} {‘to listen casually’}tue‘to shake, dust off’→ tuetue‘to shake, dust off repeatedly’tue → tuetue{‘to shake, dust off’} {} {‘to shake, dust off repeatedly’}masae‘to be ripped, torn’→ masaesae‘ripped, torn in many places’masae → masaesae{‘to be ripped, torn’} {} {‘ripped, torn in many places’}maavae‘separated, divided’→ mavaevae‘divided into many parts’maavae → mavaevae{‘separated, divided’} {} {‘divided into many parts’}fakaoso‘to provoke’→ fakaosooso‘to tempt’[12]fakaoso → fakaosooso{‘to provoke’} {} {‘to tempt’[12]}The prefix faka- is another interesting aspect of Tuvaluan.
Passive and reciprocal verbs undergo some changes by the use of affixes, but these forms are used infrequently and usually apply to loan words from Samoan.
Like many other Polynesian languages, the Tuvaluan pronoun system distinguishes between exclusive and inclusive, and singular, dual and plural forms (see table below).
[12] This often involves the use of tangata (‘male’) or fafine (‘female’) as an adjective or affix to illustrate information about gender.
The inhabitants of one island of Tuvalu, Nui, speak a dialect of Gilbertese, an Oceanic language less related to Tuvaluan.
The Tuvalu Media Department provides Tuvaluan language radio programming and publishes Fenui News, a Facebook page and email newsletter.
[15] The missionaries were predominantly from Samoa and they both suppressed oral traditions that they viewed as not being consistent with Christian teaching and they also influenced the development of the music of Tuvalu and the Tuvaluan language.
[17] Grammatical documentation of the Tuvaluan language indicates that various linguistic features have been preserved specifically within domains of verbal art.
The first major work on Tuvaluan syntax was done by Donald Gilbert Kennedy, who published a Handbook on the language of the Tuvalu (Ellice) Islands in 1945.
Niko Besnier has published the greatest amount of academic material on Tuvaluan – both descriptive and lexical.
[16] Due to global increases in temperature, rising sea levels threaten the islands of Tuvalu.
Researchers acknowledges that within a "few years", the Pacific Ocean may engulf Tuvalu, swallowing not only the land, but its people and their language.
[18] The gradual resettlement of Tuvaluans in New Zealand means a loss of isolation for speakers from the larger society they are joining that situates them as a minority-language community.
As more Tuvaluans continue to migrate to New Zealand and integrate themselves into the culture and society, relative isolation decreases, contributing to the language's endangerment.