Marshallese language

Variation

The Republic of the Marshall Islands contains 34 atolls that are split into two chains, the eastern Ratak Chain and the western Rālik Chain. These two chains have different dialects, which differ mainly lexically, and are mutually intelligible. The atoll of Ujelang in the west was reported to have "slightly less homogeneous speech", but it has been uninhabited since 1980.

The Ratak and Rālik dialects differ phonetically in how they deal with stems that begin with double consonants. Ratak Marshallese inserts a vowel to separate the consonants, while Rālik adds a vowel before the consonants (and pronounced an unwritten consonant phoneme before the vowel). For example, the stem kkure 'play' becomes ikkure in Rālik Marshallese and kukure in Ratak Marshallese.

Status

Marshallese is the official language of the Marshall Islands and enjoys vigorous use. As of 1979, the language was spoken by 43,900 people in the Marshall Islands. In 2020, the number was closer to 59,000. Additional groups of speakers in other countries including Nauru and the United States increase the total number of Marshallese speakers, with approximately 27,000 Marshallese-Americans living in the United States. Along with Pohnpeian and Chuukese, Marshallese stands out among Micronesian languages in having tens of thousands of speakers; most Micronesian languages have far fewer. A dictionary and at least two Bible translations have been published in Marshallese.

Phonology

Consonants

Marshallese has a large consonant inventory, and each consonant has some type of secondary articulation (palatalization, velarization, or rounding). The palatalized consonants are regarded as "light", and the velarized and rounded consonants are regarded as "heavy", with the rounded consonants being both velarized and labialized. (This contrast is similar to that between "slender" and "broad" consonants in Goidelic languages, or between "soft" and "hard" consonants in Slavic languages.) The "light" consonants are considered more relaxed articulations.

Although Marshallese has no voicing contrast in consonants, stops may be allophonically partially voiced (, , ), when they are between vowels and not geminated. (Technically, partially voiced stops would be , , , but this article uses voiced transcriptions , , for simplicity.) Final consonants are often unreleased.

Glides vanish in many environments, with surrounding vowels assimilating their backness and roundedness. That is motivated by the limited surface distribution of these phonemes as well as other evidence that backness and roundedness are not specified phonemically for Marshallese vowels. In fact, the consonant never surfaces phonetically but is used to explain the preceding phenomenon. ( and may surface phonetically in word-initial and word-final positions and, even then, not consistently.)

Bender (1968) explains that it was once assumed that there were six bilabial consonants because of observed surface realizations, , but he determined that two of these, , were actually allophones of respectively before front vowels and allophones of respectively before back vowels. Before front vowels, the velarized labial consonants actually tend to have rounded (labiovelarized) articulations , but they remain unrounded on the phonemic level, and there are no distinct phonemes. The pronunciation guide used by Naan (2014) still recognizes as allophone symbols separate from in these same conditions while recognizing that there are only palatalized and velarized phonemes. This article uses in phonetic transcriptions.

The consonant may be phonetically realized as , , , , , , or (or any of their voiced variants , , , , , , or ), in free variation. Word-internally it usually assumes a voiced fricative articulation as (or or ) but not when geminated. is used to adapt foreign sibilants into Marshallese. In phonetic transcription, this article uses and as voiceless and voiced allophones of the same phoneme.

Marshallese has no distinct phoneme.

The dorsal consonants are usually velar but with the tongue a little farther back , making them somewhere between velar and uvular in articulation. All dorsal phonemes are "heavy" (velarized or rounded), and none are "light" (palatalized). As stated before, the palatal consonant articulations , , and are treated as allophones of the palatalized coronal obstruent , even though palatal consonants are physically dorsal. For simplicity, this article uses unmarked in phonetic transcription.

Bender (1969) describes and as being "dark" r-colored, but is not more specific. The Marshallese-English Dictionary (MED) describes these as heavy dental nasals.

Consonants , and are all coronal consonants and full trills. is similar to Spanish rr with a trill position just behind the alveolar ridge, a postalveolar trill , but is a palatalized dental trill , articulated further forward behind the front teeth. The MED and Willson (2003) describe the rhotic consonants as "retroflex", but are not clear how this relates to their dental or alveolar trill positions. (See retroflex trill.) This article uses , and in phonetic transcription.

The heavy lateral consonants and are dark l like in English feel, articulated and respectively. This article uses and in phonetic transcription.

The velarized consonants (and, by extension, the rounded consonants) may be velarized or pharyngealized like the emphatic consonants in Arabic or Mizrahi Hebrew.

Vowels

Marshallese has a vertical vowel system of just four vowel phonemes, each with several allophones depending on the surrounding consonants.

On the phonemic level, while Bender (1969) and Choi (1992) agree that the vowel phonemes are distinguished by height, they describe the abstract nature of these phonemes differently, with Bender treating the front unrounded surface realizations as their relaxed state that becomes altered by proximity of velarized or rounded consonants, while Choi uses central vowel symbols in a neutral fashion to notate the abstract phonemes and completely different front, back and rounded vowel symbols for surface realizations. Bender (1968, 1969), MED (1976) and Willson (2003) recognize four vowel phonemes, but Choi (1992) observes only three of the phonemes as having a stable quality, but theorizes that there may be a historical process of reduction from four to three, and otherwise ignores the fourth phoneme. For phonemic transcription of vowels, this article recognizes four phonemes and uses the front unrounded vowel notation of the MED, following the approach of Bender (1969) in treating the front vowel surface realizations as the representative phonemes.

On the phonetic level, Bender (1968), MED (1976), Choi (1992), Willson (2003) and Naan (2014) notate some Marshallese vowel surface realizations differently from one another, and they disagree on how to characterize the vowel heights of the underlying phonemes, with Willson (2003) taking the most divergent approach in treating the four heights as actually two heights each with the added presence (+ATR) or absence (-ATR) of advanced tongue root. Bender (1968) assigns central vowel symbols for the surface realizations that neighbor velarized consonants, but the MED (1976), Choi (1992) and Willson (2003) largely assign back unrounded vowel symbols for these, with the exception that the MED uses rather than cardinal for the close-mid back unrounded vowel, and Choi (1992) and Willson (2003) use rather than cardinal for the open back unrounded vowel. Naan (2014) is the only reference providing a vowel trapezium for its own vowels, and differs especially from the other vowel models in splitting the front allophones of into two realizations ( before consonants and in open syllables), merging the front allophones of and as before consonants and in open syllables, merging the rounded allophones of and as , and indicating the front allophone of as a close-mid central unrounded vowel , a realization more raised even than the front allophone of the normally higher . For phonetic notation of vowel surface realizations, this article largely uses the MED's notation, but uses only cardinal symbols for back unrounded vowels.

Superficially, 12 Marshallese vowel allophones appear in minimal pairs, a common test for phonemicity. For example, (mā, 'breadfruit'), (ma, 'but'), and (mọ, 'taboo') are separate Marshallese words. However, the uneven distribution of glide phonemes suggests that they underlyingly end with the glides (thus , , ). When glides are taken into account, it emerges that there are only 4 vowel phonemes.

When a vowel phoneme appears between consonants with different secondary articulations, the vowel often surfaces as a smooth transition from one vowel allophone to the other. For example, jok 'shy', phonemically , is often realized phonetically as . It follows that there are 24 possible short diphthongs in Marshallese:

These diphthongs are the typical realizations of short vowels between two non-glide consonants, but in reality the diphthongs themselves are not phonemic, and short vowels between two consonants with different secondary articulations can be articulated as either a smooth diphthong (such as ) or as a monophthong of one of the two vowel allophones (such as ), all in free variation. Bender (1968) also observes that when the would-be diphthong starts with a back rounded vowel and ends with a front unrounded vowel , then a vowel allophone associated with the back unrounded vowels (notated in this article as ) may also occur in the vowel nucleus. Because the cumulative visual complexity of notating so many diphthongs in phonetic transcriptions can make them more difficult to read, it is not uncommon to phonetically transcribe Marshallese vowel allophones only as one predominant monophthongal allophone, so that a word like can be more simply transcribed as , in a condensed fashion. Before Bender's (1968) discovery that Marshallese utilized a vertical vowel system, it was conventional to transcribe the language in this manner with a presumed inventory of 12 vowel monophthong phonemes, and it remains in occasional use as a more condensed phonetic transcription. This article uses phonemic or diphthongal phonetic transcriptions for illustrative purposes, but for most examples it uses condensed phonetic transcription with the most relevant short vowel allophones roughly corresponding to Marshallese orthography as informed by the MED.

Some syllables appear to contain long vowels: naaj 'future'. They are thought to contain an underlying glide (, or ), which is not present phonetically. For instance, the underlying form of naaj is . Although the medial glide is not realized phonetically, it affects vowel quality; in a word like , the vowel transitions from to and then back to , as . In condensed phonetic transcription, the same word can be expressed as or .

Phonotactics

Syllables in Marshallese follow CV, CVC, and VC patterns. Marshallese words always underlyingly begin and end with consonants. Initial, final, and long vowels may be explained as the results of underlying glides not present on the phonetic level. Initial vowels are sometimes realized with an onglide or but not consistently:

• 'weave'

Only homorganic consonant sequences are allowed in Marshallese, including geminate varieties of each consonant, except for glides. Non-homorganic clusters are separated by vowel epenthesis even across word boundaries. Some homorganic clusters are also disallowed:

• Obstruent-obstruent, nasal-nasal, liquid-liquid, nasal-obstruent, and nasal-liquid clusters undergo assimilation of the secondary articulation except if the first consonant is a rounded coronal or a rounded dorsal. Then, the clusters undergo assimilation of the rounded articulation.
• †Obstruent-liquid and liquid-obstruent clusters besides and undergo epenthesis.
• Liquid-nasal clusters undergo nasal assimilation.
• Obstruent-nasal clusters undergo epenthesis (if coronal) or nasal assimilation (if non-coronal).
• Clusters involving any glides undergo epenthesis, including otherwise homorganic clusters of two of the same glide.

The following assimilations are created, with empty combinations representing epenthesis.

The vowel height of an epenthetic vowel is not phonemic as the epenthetic vowel itself is not phonemic, but is still phonetically predictable given the two nearest other vowels and whether one or both of the cluster consonants are glides. Bender (1968) does not specifically explain the vowel heights of epenthetic vowels between two non-glides, but of his various examples containing such vowels, none of the epenthetic vowels has a height lower than the highest of either of their nearest neighboring vowels, and the epenthetic vowel actually becomes if the two nearest vowels are both . Naan (2014) does not take the heights of epenthetic vowels between non-glides into consideration, phonetically transcribing all of them as a schwa . But when one of the consonants in a cluster is a glide, the height of the epenthetic vowel between them follows a different process, assuming the same height of whichever vowel is on the opposite side of that glide, forming a long vowel with it across the otherwise silent glide. Epenthetic vowels do not affect the rhythm of the spoken language, and can never be a stressed syllable. Phonetic transcription may indicate epenthetic vowels between two non-glides as non-syllabic, using IPA notation similar to that of semi-vowels. Certain Westernized Marshallese placenames spell out the epenthetic vowels:

• Ebeye, from earlier Ebeje, from Epjā
• Erikub, from Ādkup
• Kwajalein, from Kuwajleen
• Majuro, from Mājro
• Namorik, from Naṃdik
• Omelek, from Koṃle ("Koṃle, Koṃle")
• Rongelap, from Roñḷap
• Rongerik, from Roñdik
• Ujelang, from Wūjlañ
• Uliga, from Wūlka
• Utirik, from Utrōk

Epenthetic vowels in general can be omitted without affecting meaning, such as in song or in enunciated syllable breaks. This article uses non-syllabic notation in phonetic IPA transcription to indicate epenthetic vowels between non-glides.

Timing

The short vowel phonemes and the approximant phonemes all occupy a roughly equal duration of time. Though they occupy time, the approximants are generally not articulated as glides, and Choi (1992) does not rule out a deeper level of representation. In particular, short vowels occupy one unit of time, and long vowels (for which is an approximant phoneme) are three times as long.

As a matter of prosody, each consonant and vowel phonemic sequence carries one mora in length, with the exception of in sequences where the vowel carries one mora for both phonemes. All morae are thus measured in or shut sequences:

• is two morae: . It is also the shortest possible length of a Marshallese word.
• is three morae: . Since approximants are also consonants, long vowel sequences of are also three morae.
• is four morae: .
• Prefixes like ri- are sequences occupying only one mora but are attached to words rather than standing as words on their own.
• Suffixes like -in are sequences. The syllable itself occupies two morae but adds only one mora to the word because the vowel attaches itself to the last consonant phoneme in the word, changing into .

That makes Marshallese a mora-rhythmed language in a fashion similar to Finnish, Gilbertese, Hawaiian, and Japanese.

Historic sound changes

Marshallese consonants show splits conditioned by the surrounding Proto-Micronesian vowels. Proto-Micronesian *k *ŋ *r become rounded next to *o or next to *u except in bisyllables whose other vowel is unrounded. Default outcomes of *l and *n are palatalized; they become velarized or rounded before *a or sometimes *o if there is no high vowel in an adjacent syllable. Then, roundedness is determined by the same rule as above.

Orthography

Marshallese is written in the Latin alphabet. There are two competing orthographies. The "old" orthography was introduced by missionaries. This system is not highly consistent or faithful in representing the sounds of Marshallese, but until recently, it had no competing orthography. It is currently widely used, including in newspapers and signs. The "new" orthography is gaining popularity especially in schools and among young adults and children. The "new" orthography represents the sounds of the Marshallese language more faithfully and is the system used in the Marshallese–English dictionary by Abo et al.

The current alphabet, as promoted by the Republic of the Marshall Islands, consists of 24 letters.

Marshallese spelling is based on pronunciation rather than a phonemic analysis. Therefore, backness is marked in vowels despite being allophonic (it does not change the meaning), and many instances of the glides proposed on the phonemic level are unwritten, because they do not surface as consonants phonetically. In particular, the glide , which never surfaces as a consonant phonetically, is always unwritten.

The letter w is generally used only in three situations:

1. To mark a rounded consonant (one of kw ḷw ṇw ñw rw) or approximant phoneme (w) before a vowel that precedes an unrounded consonant phoneme (a ā e i ō ū). Even then, if the consonant phoneme comes after a back rounded vowel ọ o u and before another vowel, it is common to write one of ḷ ṇ r instead of ḷw ṇw rw, but the rounded dorsal consonants kw ñw are still written with w in these circumstances.
2. To mark a velarized bilabial consonant (either bw or ṃw) before a vowel that precedes a palatalized consonant phoneme (ā e i).
3. To indicate a glide phonetically surfacing either word-initially or between two vowels.

w is never written out word-finally or before another consonant.

• Kuwajleen / Kuajleen "Kwajalein".

The palatal glide phoneme may also be written out but only as e before one of a o ō ọ, or as i before one of either u ū. The approximant is never written before any of ā e i. A stronger raised palatal glide , phonemically analyzed as the exotic un-syllabic consonant-vowel-consonant sequence rather than plain , may occur word-initially before any vowel and is written i. For historical reasons, certain words like iọkwe may be written as yokwe with a y, which does not otherwise exist in the Marshallese alphabet.

One source of orthographic variation is in the representation of vowels. Pure monophthongs are written consistently based on vowel quality. However, short diphthongs may often be written with one of the two vowel sounds that they contain. (Alternate phonetic realizations for the same phonemic sequences are provided purely for illustrative purposes.)

• wōtōm / otem "all; every".

Modern orthography has a bias in certain spelling choices in which both possibilities are equally clear between two non-approximant consonants.

• a is preferred over ā.

  ḷap "big", not *ḷāp

• i is preferred over ū.

  dik "small", not *dūk

• Historically, both ō and e have been common and sometimes interchangeable. It is still true today with some words. In the new orthography, ō is generally preferred over e in most such situations.

  aelōñ "atoll; island; land", not *aeleñ

  Epatōn "Ebadon", not *Epaten

  Kūrijṃōj "Christmas", not *Kūrijṃej

  Nōḷ "Nell", not *Neḷ

• However, after one of d j m p and before one of unrounded b k ḷ ṃ ṇ ñ r t, the spelling e is preferred over ō.

  pinjeḷ "pencil", not *pinjōḷ

• For the name of the Marshall Islands, the new orthography prefers e, but the spelling with ō is still found.

  Ṃajeḷ or Ṃajōḷ , "Marshall Islands"

In a syllable whose first consonant is rounded and whose second consonant is palatalized, it is common to see the vowel between them written as one of a ō ū, usually associated with a neighboring velarized consonant:

• Ọkwōj "August".
• Wūjlañ "Ujelang".

The exception is long vowels and long diphthongs made up of two mora units, which are written with the vowel quality closer to the phonetic nucleus of the long syllable:

• jouj "kindness".
• naaj "will be".
• tāākji "taxicab".

If the syllable is phonetically open, the vowel written is usually the second vowel in the diphthong: the word bwe is usually not written any other way, but exceptions exist such as aelōñ ( "land; country; island; atoll"), which is preferred over *āelōñ because the a spelling emphasizes that the first (unwritten) glide phoneme is dorsal rather than palatal.

The spelling of grammatical affixes, such as ri- () and -in () is less variable despite the fact that their vowels become diphthongs with second member dependent on the preceding/following consonant: the prefix ri- may be pronounced as any of depending on the stem. The term Ri-Ṃajeḷ ("Marshallese people") is actually pronounced as if it were Rūṃajeḷ.

Display issues

In the most polished printed text, the letters L‌̧ l‌̧ M̧ m̧ N‌̧ n‌̧ O̧ o̧ always appear with unaltered cedillas directly beneath, and the letters Ā ā N̄ n̄ Ō ō Ū ū always appear with unaltered macrons directly above. Regardless, the diacritics are often replaced by ad hoc spellings using more common or more easily displayable characters. In particular, the Marshallese-English Online Dictionary (but not the print version), or MOD, uses the following characters:

As of 2019, there are no dedicated precomposed characters in Unicode for the letters M̧ m̧ N̄ n̄ O̧ o̧; they must be displayed as plain Latin letters with combining diacritics, and even many Unicode fonts will not display the combinations properly and neatly. Although L‌̧ l‌̧ N‌̧ n‌̧ exist as precomposed characters in Unicode, these letters also do not display properly as Marshallese letters in most Unicode fonts. Unicode defines the letters as having a cedilla, but fonts usually display them with a comma below because of rendering expectations of the Latvian alphabet. For many fonts, a workaround is to encode these letters as the base letter L l N n followed by a zero-width non-joiner and then a combining cedilla, producing L‌̧ l‌̧ N‌̧ n‌̧.

Both systems already require fonts that display Basic Latin (with A a B b D d E e I i J j K k L l M m N n O o P p R r T t U u W w) and Latin Extended-A (with Ā ā Ō ō Ū ū). The standard orthography also requires Combining Diacritical Marks for the combining diacritics. The MOD's alternative letters have the advantage of being neatly displayable as all-precomposed characters in any Unicode fonts that support Basic Latin, Latin Extended-A along with Latin-1 Supplement (with Ñ ñ) and Latin Extended Additional (with Ḷ ḷ Ṃ ṃ Ṇ ṇ Ọ ọ). If a font comfortably displays both the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration and the Vietnamese alphabet, it can also display MOD Marshallese.

This chart highlights the display issues in common web fonts and common free Unicode fonts that are known to support standard or MOD Marshallese lettering. Distinct typefaces appear only if the operating environment supports them. Some fonts have combining diacritic alignment issues, and the vast majority of the fonts have the Latvian diacritic issue; of the fonts shown below, only the Noto series displays Marshallese correctly.

Differences in orthography

The old orthography was still very similar to the new orthography but made fewer phonological distinctions in spelling than the new orthography does. The new orthography attempts phonological consistency while adhering to most of the spelling patterns of the old orthography, especially in regard to vowels and w. It has made the new orthography relatively easy for old orthography users to learn. The phonology of Marshallese was documented by Bender (1969) with written examples using the old orthography. Here are some differences between the new and old orthographies:

• The new orthography uses the cedillaed letters ḷ ṃ ṇ ọ. The old orthography did not use cedillas and ambiguously wrote them l m n o.
• The new orthography uses p for "light" and b for "heavy" . The old orthography used b for both.

  Compare old binjel vs. new pinjeḷ , 'pencil'.

• The new orthography consistently uses d for "light" in all positions. The old orthography often wrote dr before vowels, and r after vowels.

  Compare old Amerka vs. new Amedka , 'United States'.

  Compare old indreo or indrio vs. new indeeo , 'forever'.

• Except in certain affixes like -an whose spelling may be fixed, the new orthography spells the vowel monophthong allophone as ā in all positions. The old orthography had ā, but it was relatively less common, and was sometimes written e instead.

  Compare old Ebeje vs. new Epjā , 'Ebeye'.

• Except in certain affixes like ri- whose the spelling of the vowels may be fixed, the new orthography spells the vowel monophthong allophone as ū in all positions. The old orthography spelled as i between consonants.

  Compare old Kirijmōj vs. new Kūrijṃōj , 'Christmas'.

• The new orthography uses only e o ō for allophones of the vowel phoneme . In the old orthography, some words used e o ō, but other words used i u (ū) instead.

  Compare old ailiñ vs. new aelōñ , 'land'.

• The new orthography uses the letter ọ for the vowel monophthong allophone along with many of its related diphthong allophones. The old orthography spelt as a between consonants but o at the ends of words.

  Compare old iakwe vs. new iọkwe , 'hello; good bye; love'.

  Compare old mo vs. new mọ , 'taboo'.

• The new orthography tries to consistently write long vowels and geminated consonants with double letters. The old orthography habitually wrote these as single letters.

  Compare old ekatak vs. new ekkatak , 'study'.

  Compare old jab vs. new jaab , 'no'.

• The word iọkwe ('hello; goodbye; love') and the phrase iọkwe eok ('hello [to you]') are a special case. The new orthography's rules use iọkwe eok, while the old orthography's rules used iakwe iuk. However, yokwe yuk has been historically more entrenched in both orthographies, but the letter y does not exist in the normal spelling rules of either orthography. That spelling has multilingual significance as well; yokwe (yuk) is also the established spelling for the greeting when used in Marshallese-influenced English and by anglophones in the Marshall Islands.

Bender's orthography

In his 1968 publication Marshallese Phonology, linguist Byron W. Bender designed a purely morphophonemic orthography, based on the symbols found on a manual typewriter, with regular reflexes between the dialects and intended for use in dictionaries and language teaching. Besides also appearing in his 1969 tutorial Spoken Marshallese, it appeared in a modified form alongside the "new" orthography in the 1976 Marshallese-English Dictionary (MED) to which he contributed. Bender later collaborated with Stephen Trussel when the MED was adapted to website format as the Marshallese-English Online Dictionary (MOD), with Bender's orthography appearing in an again-modified form.

The MOD's version of Bender's orthography uses under-dot diacritics instead of the cedillas used both by the "new" orthography and by the 1976 MED's version of Bender's orthography, for reasons specific to the MOD's display issues.

In addition to plain sequences of phonemes, Bender's orthography recognizes a few special sequences, many of which relate to regular differences between the Rālik and Ratak dialects of Marshallese.

• {yiꞌy} is for a "passing over lightly" version of the vowel allophone i that occurs at the beginning of certain words, phonetically pronounced and existing on the phonemic level as . For example, {yiꞌyakʷey} is equivalent to iọkwe "hello; goodbye; love".
• {ꞌyiy} is for a "dwelling upon" version of i that occurs at the beginning of certain words, now generally written ii in the "new" orthography, phonetically pronounced and existing on the phonemic level as , effectively making it identical to {yiyy}. An example is {ꞌyiyayiyȩw}, which is equivalent to iiāio "reunion".
• {yiy} at the beginning of a word, without apostrophes, indicates a version of i whose reflex differs between the two dialects. In the Rālik dialect, this assumes the "dwelling upon" pronunciation, equivalent to {ꞌyiy}. In the Ratak dialect, it instead assumes the "passing over lightly" pronunciation, equivalent to {yiꞌy}. An example is {yiyaḷ}, equivalent to iaḷ "road":
  • In the Rālik dialect, {yiyaḷ} becomes and is often instead written as iiaḷ in the "new" orthography.
  • In the Ratak dialect, {yiyaḷ} becomes .
• {hhV} at the beginning of a word (where "V" can be any vowel) indicates a back unrounded vowel that whose reflex differs between the dialects. In the Rālik dialect, {hhV} becomes {hVhV}, lengthening the vowel. In the Ratak dialect, the second {h} disappears, becoming {hV}, and the vowel remains short. An example is {hhayȩt}, equivalent to aet "yes":
  • In the Rālik dialect, {hhayȩt} becomes and is often instead written as aaet in the "new" orthography.
  • In the Ratak dialect, {hhayȩt} becomes .
• {yiwV} at the beginning of a word (where "V" can be any vowel) is usually equivalent to {yiwwV}.
• {wiwV} at the beginning of a word (where "V" can be any vowel) usually becomes {yiwwV} in the Rālik dialect, but usually becomes {wiwwV} in the Ratak dialect.
• When a Bender orthography spelling begins with a doubled consonant other than {hh}, such as {ṃṃan} "good", its reflex differs between the dialects.
  • In the Rālik dialect, {ṃṃan} becomes {yeṃṃan}, sprouting both a prothetic {y} and a vowel. The dialect generally spells this eṃṃan "good" in the "new" orthography, making it homophonous with the phrase eṃṃan which means "it is good" in both dialects.
  • In the Ratak dialect, {ṃṃan} becomes {ṃeṃan} with only a prothetic vowel, appearing instead between the two consonants. The dialect generally spells this ṃōṃan "good" in the "new" orthography.
  • In both dialects, the prothetic vowel is equivalent to the first stem vowel unless it is {a}, in which case the stem vowel is always paired with the prothetic vowel {e}. But when spellings like {ṃṃan} take prefixes with a vowel, there are no prothetic vowels: {ri-} "person" + {ṃṃan} "good" becomes {riṃṃan} , which the "new" orthography spells rūṃṃan "good person".

Grammar

Morphology

Nouns are not overtly marked as such, and do not inflect for number, gender, or case. Nouns are often verbalized and verbs nominalized without any overt morphological marker:

Je-n

1PL.IN.AGR-should

al

sing.TR

al

song

in

of

pālle.

be.covered(=American)

'We should sing American songs.' (Willson 2008)

Marshallese has determiners and demonstratives which follow the noun they modify. These are marked for number, and in the plural also encode a human/nonhuman distinction. For example, in the singular pinjeḷ eo 'the pencil' and ḷaddik eo 'the boy' take the same determiner, but in the plural pinjeḷ ko 'the pencils' and ḷaddik ro have different determiners. Indefinites are an exception; in the singular they are expressed with the word juon 'one' before the noun (e.g. juon al 'a song'), and there is no plural indefinite determiner.

The Marshallese demonstrative system has five levels:

1. near the speaker (sg. e / pl. human rā / pl. nonhuman kā)
2. near the speaker and listener (in / rein / kein)
3. near the listener (ṇe / raṇe / kaṇe)
4. away from both speaker and listener (eṇ / raṇ / kaṇ)
5. distant but visible (uweo / roro / koko).

Marshallese possesses two sets of 1st and 2nd person singular pronouns, known as "absolutive" or "emphatic" pronouns and as "objective" pronouns. Marshallese 1st person plurals mark for clusivity. Third person objective pronouns may only be used for humans; nonhumans instead take a null pronoun:

E-ar

3S.AGR-PAST

deñōt

slap.TR

er.

3PL.OBJ

'He slapped them (human).' (Willson 2008)

E-ar

3S.AGR-PAST

deñōt-i.

slap.TR-OBJ

'He slapped them (nonhuman).' (Willson 2008)

The emphatic pronouns serve as subjects of equational sentences, as complements of prepositions, in order to emphasize objects, in coordination structures, and with topicalized or focused subjects. It is common in Oceanic languages for a special type of pronoun to be used in equational sentences and for topicalization or focus.

Ña

1S.EMPH

rikaki.

teacher

'I am a teacher.' (Willson 2008)

Ña

1S.EMPH

i-j

1S.AGR.PRES

yokwe

love

ajiri

child

ro

the.PL.HUM

nej-ū.

CHER.POSS-1S.GEN

'Me, I love my children.' (Willson 2008)

Marshallese has four verb tenses: present, past, near future, and future. The tenses are formed by adding a tense suffix to the personal pronoun in the sentence. If the subject is not a personal pronoun, a third-person pronoun is added with the appropriate tense suffix. The present tense is formed by attaching the suffix -j to the personal pronoun (-ij for kōm and koṃ). The suffix for the past tense is either -ar or -kar depending on the dialect. -naaj is the suffix used for the regular future tense and -itōn is used for the near future.

Syntax

Marshallese, like many Micronesian languages, divides sentences into two types: predicational sentences and equational sentences. Predicational sentences have SVO word order and a main verb:

E-j

3S-PRES

kajañjañ

play

kita.

guitar.

'He plays guitar.' (Willson 2002)

In equational sentences, both the subject and predicate are noun phrases:

Nuknuk

dress

eo

DET

e-aibujuij.

3S-beautiful.

'The dress is beautiful.' (Willson 2002)

Vocabulary

Cardinal numbers

This includes the cardinal numbers one through ten in the Rālik dialect. Where Ratak forms differ, they are listed in parentheses.

1. juon
2. ruo
3. jilu
4. emān
5. ḷalem
6. jiljino (the l is silent)
7. jimjuon
8. ralitōk (ejino)
9. ratimjuon (ejilimjuon)
10. joñoul

Months

1. Jānwōde , 'January'
2. Pāpode , 'February'
3. Ṃaaj , 'March'
4. Eprōḷ , 'April'
5. Māe , 'May'
6. Juun , 'June'
7. Juḷae , 'July'
8. Ọkwōj , 'August'
9. Jeptōṃba , also Jebtōṃba , 'September'
10. Oktoba , 'October'
11. Nobōṃba , also Nopeṃba , 'November'
12. Tijeṃba , 'December'

Weekdays

1. Jabōt , 'Sunday; Sabbath'
2. Ṃande , 'Monday'
3. Juje , 'Tuesday'
4. Wōnje , 'Wednesday'
5. Taije , 'Thursday'
6. Bōraide , also Bōḷaide , also Būḷāide , 'Friday'
7. Jādede , 'Saturday'

Marshallese atolls and islands

• Ṃajeḷ or Ṃajōḷ , 'Marshall Islands'
  • Ratak , 'Ratak Chain'
    • Aelok , 'Ailuk Atoll'
    • Arṇo , 'Arno Atoll'
    • Aur , 'Aur Atoll'
    • Ādkup , 'Erikub Atoll'
    • Bokaak or Bok-ak , 'Bokak (Taongi) Atoll'
    • Jāmọ , 'Jemo Island'
    • Likiep , 'Likiep Atoll'
    • Mājeej or Mājej , 'Mejit Island'
    • Mājro , 'Majuro Atoll'
      • Jarōj , 'Djarrit'
      • Ḷora , 'Laura'
      • Teḷap , 'Delap'
      • Wūlka , 'Uliga'
    • Mile , 'Mili Atoll'
    • Ṃaḷo-eḷap , 'Maloelap Atoll'
    • Ṇa-dikdik , 'Knox Atoll'
    • Pikaar , 'Bikar Atoll'
    • Tōkā , 'Toke (Taka) Atoll'
    • Utrōk , 'Utirik Atoll'
    • Wōjjā , 'Wotje Atoll'
  • Rālik , 'Ralik Chain'
    • Aelōñin-ae , 'Ailinginae Atoll'
    • Aelōñḷapḷap , 'Ailinglaplap Atoll'
    • Āne-wātak , also Ānewetak , 'Enewetak (Eniwetok) Atoll'
    • Ellep , 'Lib Island'
    • Epoon , 'Ebon Atoll'
    • Jālwōj or Jālooj , 'Jaluit Atoll'
      • Jebwad , 'Jabor Island'
    • Jebat , 'Jabat (Jabot, Jabwot) Island'
    • Kōle , 'Kili Island'
    • Kuwajleen , 'Kwajalein Atoll'
      • Epjā , also Ibae , 'Ebeye Island'
    • Lae , 'Lae Atoll'
    • Naṃdik , 'Namdrik (Namorik) Atoll'
    • Naṃo , 'Namu Atoll'
    • Pikinni , 'Bikini Atoll'
    • Roñdik , 'Rongerik (Rongdrik) Atoll'
    • Roñḷap , 'Rongelap Atoll'
    • Wōtto , 'Wotho Atoll'
    • Wūjae or Ujae , 'Ujae Atoll'
    • Wūjlañ or Ujlañ , 'Ujelang Atoll'
  • Āneen-kio , 'Wake (Enenkio) Atoll' (claimed by the Marshall Islands, administered by the United States)

Other countries and places

• Amedka , 'United States (America)'
  • Awai , 'Hawaii', where a Marshallese diaspora lives
  • Kalboonea , 'California', where a Marshallese diaspora lives
  • Ọkōnjọ , 'Arkansas', where a large Marshallese diaspora lives
• Aujtōrōlia , 'Australia'
• Eijia , 'Asia'
  • Jaina , also Jāina , also Jeina , 'China'
  • Jepaan , also Nibboñ , 'Japan (Nippon)', former colonial ruler
  • Kuria , 'Korea'
  • Pilipin , 'Philippines', former colonial administrator under Spanish rule
  • Rojia , 'Russia'
  • Taiwan , 'Taiwan'
• Iñlen , 'England'
• Jaṃuwa , 'Samoa'
• Jāmne , 'Germany', former colonial ruler
• Jipein , 'Spain', former colonial ruler
• Ṃaikronijia , 'Micronesia'
  • Karoḷāin , 'Caroline Islands'
    • Bōḷau , also Bōḷao , 'Palau'
    • FSM , 'Federated States of Micronesia (F.S.M.)'
      • Boonpe , 'Pohnpei (Ponape)'
      • Iaab , 'Yap'
      • Kujjae , also Kōjae , 'Kosrae (Kusaie)'
      • Ruk , 'Chuuk (Truk)'
  • Kilbōt , 'Kiribati (Gilbert Islands)'
  • Ṃadianna , 'Mariana Islands'
    • Jāipaan , 'Saipan'
    • Kuwaaṃ , 'Guam'
  • Nawōdo , 'Nauru (Naoero)'
• Mejjiko , 'Mexico', former colonial administrator under Spanish rule
• Nijiiḷōn , 'New Zealand'
• Nukne , also , 'New Guinea', former colonial administrator under German rule
• Piji , 'Fiji'
• Tubaḷu , 'Tuvalu'

Text examples

Modern orthography

Here is the Hail Mary in standard Marshallese orthography:

Iọkwe eok Maria, kwo lōñ kōn

menin jouj;

Irooj ej pād ippaṃ.

Kwo jeraṃṃan iaan kōrā raṇ im

ejeraṃṃan ineen lọjiōṃ, Jesus.

O Maria kwojarjar, jinen Anij,

kwōn jar kōn kem rijjerawiwi.

Kiiō im ilo iien

amwōj mej. Amen.

Older orthography

Here is the Lord's Prayer from the 1982 Marshallese Bible, which uses the older orthography:

Jememuij iljōn̄:

En kwojarjar im utiej etam;

En itok am Ailin̄;

Kimin kōmōnmōn ankilam ilōl einwōt air kōmmōn ilōn.

Letok n̄ōn kim kijim rainin.

Jolok amuij bwid ibbam,

Einwōt kimij julok bwid ko an ro jet ibbem.

Am melejjon̄e kim en jab ellā jen jon̄an,

Ak kwon kejbarok kim jen Eo Enana.

Bwe am Ailin̄ im kajur im aibuijuij indrio, Amen.