NAURUAN - i.e. referring to a native to the island of Nauru, or the language of the island - is a palindrome [1]:
N A U R U A N
Now backwards:
N A U R U A N
Wauru!
The blog A World With Little Worlds[2] charts the current learnability of Nauruan. The outlook is not great. Basically, there was one grammar book written on Nauruan in 1907 back when Nauru was a German colony. Naturally, it's written in German. Moreover, Nauruan's orthography was subject to an attempted reform in 1938.[3] Wikipedia is ambiguous about its success, but our blog author notes that the Nauruan Wikipedia's spelling system is quite different. Presumably this is due to the reform.
A quick search on my University's online library returns a thesis, published this year, which (having read the abstract - I am not a Linguistics student!) confirms the view to classifying Nauruan in the Micronesian language families.[4] The thesis compares Nauruan words to other Micronesian languages' and concludes that Nauruan is descended from Proto-Micronesian but has undergone 'a significant degree of internal sound change'[4]:v. At the date of this blog entry, the Wikipedia article for the Micronesian languages[5] shows the pre-valent scholarly view that Nauruan is a 'non-nuclear' Micronesian language. That is, it forms its own language group within the Micronesian family. Hughes argues the nuclear/non-nuclear distinction 'appears to be unneccessary'[4]:v and notes that Nauruan morphological paradigms 'have parallels' across the family.[4]:v
A Nauruan-English Thesaurus Dictionary was also published in 2008,[6] which is not mentioned by Gimbel in his blog post. The Amazon (the online shop) description notes that it is primarily for use by native speakers of Nauruan learning English - or needing a thesaurus to understand English polysemous words (with multiple meanings). It is clear to state that it is NOT intended for learners.
Unfortunately, even if I were to learn German to learn Nauruan, I can't find a copy of the 1907 grammar Die Sprache von Nauru on my University library page.
It seems, thus, that the best way to learn Nauruan would be to go there. Could one video-chat? Theoretically, yes, but it must be hard; it is in time-zone GMT+12, which literally couldn't be much greater. As we're in BST at the moment, the time difference is 11 hours (as you will be able to tell by the live clock on the right-hand side), but it is a small consolation.
The best way, it seems, is to go there. For the meantime, the trawl for resources continues.
Sources:
[1] comment(s) on 'WIKITONGUES: Siro speaking Nauruan', YouTube
[2] Gimbel, Jared, 'The State of Being Able to Learn the Nauruan Language in 2019', A World With Little Worlds
[3] 'Nauruan language', Wikipedia
[4] Hughes, Kevin, The Synchronic and Diachronic Phonology of Nauruan: Towards a Definitive Classification of an Understudied Micronesian Language (ProQuest Dissertations Publishing: Ann Arbor, 2020. 27738348)
[5] 'Micronesian languages', Wikipedia
[6] 'Webster's Nauruan - English Thesaurus Dictionary', amazon.com
N A U R U A N
Now backwards:
N A U R U A N
Wauru!
~
How does one even learn Nauruan?[1] I wonder myself.The blog A World With Little Worlds[2] charts the current learnability of Nauruan. The outlook is not great. Basically, there was one grammar book written on Nauruan in 1907 back when Nauru was a German colony. Naturally, it's written in German. Moreover, Nauruan's orthography was subject to an attempted reform in 1938.[3] Wikipedia is ambiguous about its success, but our blog author notes that the Nauruan Wikipedia's spelling system is quite different. Presumably this is due to the reform.
A quick search on my University's online library returns a thesis, published this year, which (having read the abstract - I am not a Linguistics student!) confirms the view to classifying Nauruan in the Micronesian language families.[4] The thesis compares Nauruan words to other Micronesian languages' and concludes that Nauruan is descended from Proto-Micronesian but has undergone 'a significant degree of internal sound change'[4]:v. At the date of this blog entry, the Wikipedia article for the Micronesian languages[5] shows the pre-valent scholarly view that Nauruan is a 'non-nuclear' Micronesian language. That is, it forms its own language group within the Micronesian family. Hughes argues the nuclear/non-nuclear distinction 'appears to be unneccessary'[4]:v and notes that Nauruan morphological paradigms 'have parallels' across the family.[4]:v
A Nauruan-English Thesaurus Dictionary was also published in 2008,[6] which is not mentioned by Gimbel in his blog post. The Amazon (the online shop) description notes that it is primarily for use by native speakers of Nauruan learning English - or needing a thesaurus to understand English polysemous words (with multiple meanings). It is clear to state that it is NOT intended for learners.
Unfortunately, even if I were to learn German to learn Nauruan, I can't find a copy of the 1907 grammar Die Sprache von Nauru on my University library page.
It seems, thus, that the best way to learn Nauruan would be to go there. Could one video-chat? Theoretically, yes, but it must be hard; it is in time-zone GMT+12, which literally couldn't be much greater. As we're in BST at the moment, the time difference is 11 hours (as you will be able to tell by the live clock on the right-hand side), but it is a small consolation.
The best way, it seems, is to go there. For the meantime, the trawl for resources continues.
~
Sources:
[1] comment(s) on 'WIKITONGUES: Siro speaking Nauruan', YouTube
[2] Gimbel, Jared, 'The State of Being Able to Learn the Nauruan Language in 2019', A World With Little Worlds
[3] 'Nauruan language', Wikipedia
[4] Hughes, Kevin, The Synchronic and Diachronic Phonology of Nauruan: Towards a Definitive Classification of an Understudied Micronesian Language (ProQuest Dissertations Publishing: Ann Arbor, 2020. 27738348)
[5] 'Micronesian languages', Wikipedia
[6] 'Webster's Nauruan - English Thesaurus Dictionary', amazon.com
I have Nauruan grammar and dictionary. If you need, I can mail.
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