Carolinian language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carolinian | ||
---|---|---|
Spoken in | Northern Mariana Islands | |
Region | Saipan, Anatahan, and Agrihan islands, Carolines. | |
Total speakers | 5,700 | |
Language family | Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Central-Eastern Micronesian Micronesian Proper Ponapeic-Trukic Carolinian |
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Official status | ||
Official language in | Northern Mariana Islands | |
Regulated by | No official regulation | |
Language codes | ||
ISO 639-1 | None | |
ISO 639-2 | map | |
ISO 639-3 | cal | |
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. |
Carolinian is an Austronesian language spoken in the Northern Mariana Islands, where it is an official language along with English and Chamorro. Carolinian is spoken mostly by the Carolinian people, it is most closely related to Satawalese, Woleaian, and Puluwatese. Carolinian has 95% lexical similarity with Satawalese, 88% with Woleaian and Puluwatese; 81% with Mortlockese; 78% with Chuukese, 74% with Ulithian. A 1990 census estimated the number of speakers at about 3,000, currently 5,700. Carolinian is known as Refaluwasch by native speakers. It has 31 characters in its alphabet.
[edit] References
- "Ethnologue report for language code:cal". Ethnologue: Languages of the World. http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=cal. Retrieved on April 28 2005.
- "Joshua Project Carolinian of Northern Mariana Islands Ethnic People Prolife". http://www.joshuaproject.net/peopctry.php?rog3=CQ&rop3=101890. Retrieved on December 1 2008.