Pohnpeian is a Micronesian language spoken as the indigenous language of the island of Pohnpei in the Caroline Islands. Pohnpeian has approximately 30,000 (estimated) native speakers living in Pohnpei and its outlying atolls and islands with another 10,000-15,000 (estimated) living off island in parts of the US mainland, Hawaii and Guam. It is the second-most widely spoken native language of the Federated States of Micronesia.
Pohnpeian features a "high language" including some specialized vocabulary, used in speaking about people of high rank.
Classification
Pohnpeian is most closely related to the Chuukic languages of Chuuk (formerly Truk). Ngatikese, Pingelapese and Mwokilese of the Pohnpeic languages are closely related languages to Pohnpeian. Pohnpeian shares 81% lexical similarity with Pingelapese, 75% with Mokilese, and 36% with Chuukese.
Pohnpeian employs a great deal of loanwords from colonial languages such as English, Japanese, Spanish, and German. However, these "loanwords" are neither spelled or pronounced the same as the source language.
Phonology
The modern Pohnpeian orthography uses twenty letters — sixteen single letters and four digraphs — collated in a unique order:
As German missionaries designed an early form of the orthography, Pohnpeian spelling uses -h to mark a long vowel, rather like German: 'mountain'. The IPA equivalents of written Pohnpeian are as follows:
Phonotactics
Pohnpeian phonotactics generally allow syllables consisting of consonants (C) and vowels (V) accordingly: V, VC, CV, CVC. This basic system is complicated by Pohnpeian orthographical conventions and phonological processes. Orthographically, i is used to represent , though it is often unwritten; -u is realized as ; and h indicates a long vowel (a spelling convention inherited from German). Thus, sahu is pronounced , never . Consecutive vowels are glided with or , depending on the relative height and order of the vowels: diar is said ("to find"); toai is ("to have a runny nose"); suwed is ("bad"); and lou is ("cooled"). While the glide is never written other than as i the glide may be written between u and a non-high vowel: suwed ("bad").
Words beginning in nasal consonant clusters may be pronounced as written, or with a leading prothetic vowel. The roundedness of the prothetic vowel depends on that of the adjacent consonant cluster and the first written syllable. For example, nta can be said ("blood"), and ngkapwan may be ("a while ago"); but mpwer is optionally ("twin"), and ngkopw may be (a species of crab). Pohnpeian orthography renders the consonant clusters and as mpw and mmw, respectively.
Substitution and assimilation
Further phonological constraints frequently impact the pronunciation and spelling of consonant clusters, triggered variously by reduplication and assimilation into neighboring sounds. Sound changes, especially in reduplication, are often reflected by a change in spelling. However, processes triggered by affixes as well as adjacent words are not indicated in spelling. In order to inflect, derive, and pronounce Pohnpeian words properly, the order of operations must generally begin with liquid assimilation, followed by nasal assimilation, and end with nasal substitution.
First, liquid assimilation is seen most often in reduplication alongside spelling changes. By this process, liquids and are assimilated into the following alveolar (coronal) consonant: nur > nunnur ("contract").
The second process, nasal assimilation, presents two varieties: partial and complete. In partial nasal assimilation, assimilates with a following stop consonant to produce , , , , or . For example, the prefix nan- ("in") produces: nanpar, pronounced ("trade wind season"); nanpwungara, said ("between them"); and nankep, said ("inlet"). Partial assimilation also occurs across word boundaries: kilin pwihk is pronounced . The allophone of is written "n" in these cases.
In complete nasal assimilation, assimilates into adjacent liquid consonants to produce or : lin + linenek > lillinenek ("oversexed," spelling change from reduplication); nanrek is said ("season of plenty"). Complete nasal assimilation also occurs across word boundaries: pahn lingan is said ("will be beautiful").
The third process, nasal substitution, also presents two varieties. Both varieties of nasal substitution affect adjacent consonants of the same type: alveolar (coronal), bilabial, or velar. The first variety is often triggered by reduplication, resulting in spelling changes: sel is reduplicated to sensel ("tired").