Nauruan Language Services

The Nauruan language (dorerin Naoero) is an Austronesian language spoken in Nauru. It is estimated that it has 7,000 speakers, approximately 50% of the Nauruan population. Almost all speakers are bilingual in English. It is a member of the Micronesian family of Austronesian languages. Its ISO 639 codes are ‘na’ and ‘nau’. Nauruan is a UN recognized language. Nauruan was originally written with 17 letters: five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and twelve consonants (b, d, g, j, k, m, n, p, q, r, t, w). As a result of influence from other languages, particularly German, Tok Pisin and Kiribati, additional letters were added to the alphabet. Dialects > According to a report published in 1937 in Sydney, there was a diversity of dialects until Nauru became a colony of Germany in 1888, and until the introduction of publication of the first texts written in Nauruan. The variations were largely so different that people of various districts often had problems understanding each other completely. With the increasing influence of foreign languages and the increase of Nauruan texts, the dialects blended into a standardized language, which was promoted through dictionaries and translations by Alois Kayser and Philip Delaporte. Today there is significantly less dialectal variation. In the district of Yaren and the surrounding area there is an eponymous dialect spoken, which is only slightly different. Nauruan people > The indigenous peoples of Nauru are an ethnicity, which inhabit the Pacific island of Nauru. They are most likely a blend of other Pacific peoples. The origin of the Nauruan people has not yet been finally determined. It can possibly be explained by the last Malayo-Pacific human migration (c. 1200). It was probably seafaring or shipwrecked Polynesians or Melanesians, which established themselves there because there was not already an indigenous people present, whereas the Micronesians were already crossed with the Melanesians in this area. The Nauruans have two elements of their population: the native Micronesians and the Polynesians who had immigrated long before. The Micronesians are represented through coarse, dark hair; the Polynesians are lighter brown and have smoother, black hair. Through these two extremes the diverse transitions came to exist. At about 1920, influenza spread through Nauru, which took a heavy toll on the indigenous people. In 1925 the first cases of diabetes was diagnosed by doctors. Today, depending on age, every second to third Nauruan is diabetic – a higher rate than any other country in the world.