Pukapukan is a Polynesian language that developed in isolation on the island of Pukapuka in the northern group of the Cook Islands. As a "Samoic Outlier" language with strong links to western Polynesia, Pukapukan is not closely related to any other languages of the Cook Islands, but does manifest substantial borrowing from some East Polynesian source in antiquity.
Recent research suggests that the languages of Pukapuka, Tokelau and Tuvalu group together as a cluster, and as such had significant influence on several of the Polynesian Outliers, such as Tikopia and Anuta, Pileni, Sikaiana (all in the Solomon Islands) and the Takuu Atoll in Papua New Guinea. There is also evidence that Pukapuka had prehistoric contact with Micronesia, as there are quite a number of words in Pukapukan that appear to be borrowings from Kiribati (K. & M. Salisbury conference paper, 2013).
Pukapukan is also known as "te leo Wale" ('the language of Home') in reference to the name of the northern islet where the people live. The atoll population has declined from some 750 in the early 1990s to less than 500 since the cyclone in 2005. Literacy in the Pukapukan language was introduced in the school in the 1980s, resulting in an improvement in the quality of education on the atoll.
The majority of those speaking the language live in a number of migrant communities in New Zealand and Australia. A bilingual dictionary was started by the school teachers on the island and completed in Auckland within the Pukapukan community there. An in-depth study of the language has resulted in a reference grammar. The most significant publication in the Pukapuka language is Te Puka Yā : Te Wakapononga Wōu ma te Puka Talamo : The New Testament and Psalms in Pukapukan and English (diglot edition, Pukapukan and English) published in 2024.
History Pukapukan is the language spoken on the coral atoll of Pukapuka, located in the northern section of the Cook Islands Pukapukan shares minor intelligibility with its national language of Cook Islands Maori, and bears strong links to its neighboring Western Polynesian cultures specifically Samoa. The island of Pukapuka is one of the most remote islands in the Cook Islands. There is evidence that humans have inhabited the atoll for about 2000 years, but it is not clear whether it has been continuously inhabited. Various settlements may have occurred, first from Western Polynesia. Local oral tradition records that huge waves generated by a severe cyclone washed over the island and killed most of the inhabitants except for 15–17 men, 2 women and an unknown number of children. Recent interpretation of genealogies suggests that this catastrophe occurred about 1700 AD. It was from these survivors that the island was repopulated.
The island was one of the first of the Cook Islands to be discovered by the Europeans, on Sunday 20 August 1595 by the Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña.
Population The Pukapukan language is indigenous to the island of Pukapuka and its satellite, Nassau. It is also spoken by small communities elsewhere in the Cook Islands, as well as in the larger diaspora communities in New Zealand and Australia. Today the population of Pukapuka has diminished with only a few hundred native speakers. From a 2001 census there were only about 644 speakers on Pukapuka and its plantation island of Nassau. As of a 2011 census, there are now only 450 speakers due to a devastating cyclone that hit the island of Pukapuka in 2005. There are a total of 2,400 speakers worldwide, including those who live on Pukapuka and the 200 speakers on Rarotonga, the most populous island of the Cook Islands.
Classification Pukapukan is an Austronesian language of the Nuclear Polynesian branch. Though grouped with the Cook Islands the language shows influence from both Eastern and Western Polynesia.
Phonology
Alphabet There are 15 letters in the Pukapukan alphabet – five vowels and 10 consonants. The digraph occurs in the place that occupies in the English alphabet.
Consonants + Consonants Labial Alveolar Velar Nasal Plosive Fricative Approximant
The consonant phonemes in Pukapukan are .
The letters and are not in the Cook Islands Maori language but are additions to Pukapukan. The semivowel and the palatalised dental spirant , in general, regularly reflect *f and *s, respectively. The sound in Pukapukan actually acts somewhat differently and is difficult for non native speakers to pronounce. It is pronounced like in English "this, other".
, go , new , woman , fall over , nose , one
Vowels + Vowels Front Central Back High Mid Low
The vowels in Pukapukan are respectively , , , , and . All vowels have two sounds, a long sound and a short sound. A vowel's length is indicated by writing a macron above each vowel.
, rock , European , father , crewcut (hairstyle)
In Pukapukan, every syllable ends with a vowel, every vowel is pronounced, and there are no diphthongal sounds.
Grammar
Basic word order Pukapukan uses the two distinctive word orders of verb–subject–object and verb-object-subject, although it is clear that VSO is used more commonly. Adjectives always follow their nouns in Pukapukan. is often used as a causative prefix in Austronesian languages, but in Pukapukan it has various functionalities. Due to Rarotongan influence, is shortened to , whereas is seen to be more formal. Nouns prefixed by become verbs with similar meanings:
Adjectives prefixed by become transitive verbs:
Some verbs prefixed by have specialized meanings that become somewhat difficult to predict from the base meaning.
Reduplication Like many other Polynesian languages, Pukapukan uses a lot of full and partial reduplication, some times to emphasize a word or to give it new meaning. kale, wave/surf; kale-le, undertow of the sea (waves coming in and others receding) kapa, to clap hands in rhythm; kapa-kapa, to flutter
Numerals tayi “one” lua “two” tolu “three” wā “four” lima “five” ono “six” witu “seven” valu “eight” iva “nine” laungaulu “ten”
Pukapukan uses two different counting systems in the language; the 'one unit' and the 'two unit'. Numeral classifiers are also used as prefixes for numbers over ten and different objects. The 'one unit' uses its word for ten 'laungaulu' and adds the 'one unit' number. 18 – laungaulu ma valu (ten and eight)
For numbers above nineteen the single unit numbers are used. 30 – lautolu (two three) 40 – lauwā (two four)
The 'two unit' is derived from the 'one unit'.
Demonstratives and spatial deictics
Different form classes
Demonstrative pronouns Much like other Oceanic languages, Pukapukan has a three-way distinction of positional demonstrative particles that relate to the position of the speaker and addressee. In Pukapukan, these include nei 'near to the speaker,' nā 'near to addressee and lā 'away from both the speaker and addressee.' Pukapukan also has the demonstrative particle ia meaning 'aforementioned.' These demonstrative particles form compounds with the singular articles te and e and with the preposition ki 'to.'
The definite demonstrative pronouns are formed by adding the singular specific article te-. For example, when adding te-, nei becomes tēnei 'this (by me),' nā becomes tēnā 'that (by you),' lā becomes tēlā 'that (over there)' and ia becomes teia 'this (being demonstrated or mentioned previously).' These demonstrative pronouns only occur as subjects of nominal predicates and as represented below can be equated with personal pronouns (example 1), pronouns (examples 2–3) or definite common noun phrases (examples 4–5).
The demonstrative subject may separate the head from the possessive phase when the nominal predicate is a complex phrase whose head is modified by a postposed possessive phrase, as shown in example 6 below.
The nonspecific article e and the positional demonstrative particles can also be combined to form indefinite demonstrative pronouns. These include ēnāi 'this (by me),' ēnā 'that (by you),' ēlā that (over there)' and eia 'here with (being demonstrated).' These demonstrative pronouns constitute the nucleus of indefinite nominal predicates and are normally followed by their subjects as shown in examples 7–10 below.
The demonstrative particles can also form compounds with the preposition ki- 'to.' These compounds can be used as a substitute (pro-form) for locational nouns. These types of demonstrative pronouns in Pukapukan include, kinea 'to here,' kinā to there, by you,' kilā 'to over there' and kiai 'to there,' in which kiai is an anaphoric form.
These demonstrative pronouns occur as the head of a locative predicate as demonstrated in examples 11–13 below.
The compound kiai is formed by joining the case marker ki (meaning 'to') to the anaphoric pronoun ai. Kiai may replace a personal pronoun or a proper locational noun. This can be seen in example 13 in which the locational noun wale 'home' is replaced with kiai in the following constituent.
These forms can also be used to substitute a noun phrase which has been marked for case by a preposition. For example:
Demonstrative modifiers Pukapukan has several classes of modifiers. In particular, the directional and positional modifiers help indicate spatial and temporal directions and positions from the speaker and/or addressee.
+Directionalsmai'towards speaker'atu'away from speaker'ake'upwards,' 'oblique to speaker'; 'please'io'?downwards,' 'misfortune'
According to Clark (1976), cognates of the directional particles of Pukapukan are found in all Polynesian languages.
The directional particles tend to modify verbs more frequently than nouns and are often associated with verbs that denote movement, as well as verbs that denote speech, perception, cognition and social interaction.Mai indicates real or implied movement in the direction of the speaker, for example:
Atu can indicate physical movement away from the speaker, as in:
and for verbs of perception and communication can also indicate direction away from the deictic centre, for example:
Atu can also encode temporal progression away from the present.
Mai and atu can co-occur when modifying the same verb, when one has a directional meaning and the other has a temporal or aspectual meaning.
Ake mostly functions as a politeness marker, but the directional particle ake now has meanings 'upwards' and 'oblique to speaker,' which appears to be a one-particle combination of Proto-Polynesian's hake 'upwards' and aŋe 'oblique to speaker.' Hence, it can function similar to atu and mai in term of denoting temporal and aspectual meanings. However, these forms are rarely used in present day.
In saying that, io is found to be used even less. Reflexes of its Proto-Polynesian form have traditionally been glossed 'downwards,' but this meaning is hardly apparent in Pukapukan and is more often associated with meaning 'misfortune coming upon one.'
+Positionalsnei'near to speaker'nā'near to addressee'lā'away from both, 'intensifier' -Vdefinitive accent: 'away from both'ia'aforementioned'
The positional modifiers indicate location in space or time relative to the speaker or to the deictic centre of the discourse.
Nei 'near to speaker' can modify a noun in a noun phrase or a locative phrase. Doing so indicates that the entity encoded by the noun is within sight of or in the general locality of the speaker. For instance, in example 21 below, the speaker is likely pointing to a 'word' near them while asking the question.
Nā 'near to addressee' only occurs in noun phrases and can denote a position near to the addressee (example 22), something belonging to the addressee or a characteristic behavior pattern or inherent quality of the addressee (example 23) or, in long-distance communication nā can indicate that the addressee is anticipated to be in a certain place at the time of reading the letter or story or answering the phone call during the long-distance communication (example 24).