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| Moriori | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | New Zealand | |
| Region: | Polynesia | |
| Total speakers: | unknown | |
| Language family: | Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian(MP) Central-Eastern MP Eastern MP Oceanic Central-Eastern Oceanic Remote Oceanic Central Pacific East Fijian-Polynesian Polynesian Nuclear Polynesian Eastern Polynesian Central E. Polynesian Tahitic Moriori |
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| Writing system: | Latin | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | – | |
| ISO 639-3: | – | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
- For the language of the same name spoken in New Guinea, see Moriori language (New Guinea).
Moriori is a formerly extinct[1] Malayo-Polynesian language most closely related to New Zealand Māori. It is the native language of the Moriori, the indigenous people of the Chatham Islands (Rekohu in Moriori) which are east of and under New Zealand sovereignty.
The invasion from Taranaki had a heavy impact on Moriori culture and language, with few speaking the language by the 1870s.[2] However, Samuel Deighton, Resident Magistrate on the Chathams from 1873 to 1891, compiled a short vocabulary of Moriori words, with their equivalents in Māori and English. The vocabulary is published as an appendix of King's "Moriori; A People Rediscovered".
The language was reconstructed for parts of the 2000 film "Feathers of Peace"[1], which recreated in documentary style the history of contact between the Moriori people and Pākehā and Māori.
In 2001, as part of a cultural revival movement, Moriori people began attempts to revive the language, and compiled a database of Moriori words.[3]
References
- ^ "Maori: A language of New Zealand". 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition.. Retrieved on 2007-03-27.
- ^ *King, M. (1989), written at Auckland, Moriori; A People Rediscovered, Viking, 136
- ^ Denise Davis & Māui Solomon, "Moriori", Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, September 19, 2007
Further reading
- Galbraith, Sarah: A Grammar of the Moriori language.
- Clark, R. 1994. Moriori and Maori: The Linguistic Evidence. In Sutton, D. (ed) The origins of the First New Zealanders. Auckland: Auckland University Press. pp.123-135.
