Lesser-Known Languages (LKL): Rapa Nui
The little-known language of the Easter Island, home of the Moai statues
Growing up in France with Christian grandparents, I enjoyed searching for chocolate eggs in the garden every Easter. It’s a tradition I hold dear and want to transfer one day to my future children.
A few months ago, while researching which lesser-known languages I’d cover for South America, I discovered a language I had never heard of: Rapa Nui. And when I checked where it was spoken, my eyes opened wide.
Rapa Nui is the language spoken on an island called Easter Island.
Yes. The same Easter. It turns out this Chilean island located 4,000 kilometers away from Chile was discovered on Easter day in 1722 and so this name was given to it.
I chose on the spot to write about it but decided to include it in a month about Oceania because, while the island is part of Chile, this language is part of the Eastern Polynesian language family.
And so, here we are. Talking about the Rapa Nui language spoken by, apparently, about 1,000 people out of the 9,000 ethnic Rapa Nui people found on the island and in Chile.
But before we start talking about the language itself, let’s understand how this island became Chilean.
A history of “visits” from the east
The first recorded arrival on the island was on April 5th, 1722, by the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen. He indicated in letters there were about 2,000 to 3,000 inhabitants on the island.
Several decades later, on 15 November 1770, two Spanish ships, San Lorenzo and Santa Rosalia, arrived on the island. These ships, sent by the Viceroy of Peru, Manuel de Amat, spent five days on the island performing a comprehensive survey of its coast. The Spanish named it Isla de San Carlos, claiming possession on behalf of King Charles III of Spain.
The British explorer James Cook then visited Easter Island in mid-March 1774. Cook's observations indicated that the statues, which are one of the most iconic features of the island, were being neglected, with some having fallen down. He estimated that there were about 700 people on the island.
In 1786, French explorer Jean François de Galaup La Pérouse visited Easter Island and made a detailed map of it. He described the island as being one-tenth cultivated and estimated that the island's population was around 2,000.
From there on, the island became a regular stop for ships passing in the area. The repeated arrival of foreigners also brought diseases.
In 1862-63, Peruvian ships raided the island to bring back cheap labor for mines, plantations, and households. At least 1,400 people were taken away. Most died of smallpox and many of those who returned in 1863 brought the disease with them too, causing the death of yet more native Rapa Nui people.
According to A Grammar of Rapa Nui, the number of people on Easter Island decreased to 111 in 1877 before starting to rise again (doubling by 1897 and again by 1934).
Today’s Rapa Nui people are all descendants of these 111 people.
However, the most transformative event in the island's history occurred on 9 September 1888, when Easter Island was annexed by Chile. Policarpo Toro, acting on behalf of Chile, enacted the "Treaty of Annexation of the island" (Tratado de Anexión de la isla).
After annexation, the native Rapa Nui people were forced to live in a walled-off area in Hanga Roa, working for a Scottish sheep ranch.
In 1966, Easter Island became a civil territory of Chile, giving Chilean citizenship to its population. An airport opened in 1967, allowing for tourism to expand and provide job opportunities for many. As of right now, this small island of 163.6 square kilometers attracts nearly 100,000 people annually.
A language from the west
While Rapa Nui is the most eastern island of Oceania, all linguistic signs seem to indicate its population originally came from further West and not from the closer continent of South America.
Rapa Nui’s origins are unclear but theories tie the language to the migration of Polynesian people through the islands.
In fact, Rapa Nui is a Polynesian language, a sub-group of the Austronesian language family and linguists agree that Austronesian languages started out in Taiwan some 5,000 years ago. As people speaking these languages spread, each language added its own flavor. Throughout the millenniums, they turned into their own, completely different languages.
The Rapa Nui people arrived on Easter Island about 1,200 AD. The language they brought with them has similarities to other Polynesian languages and in particular Marquesan and Tahitian.
Simple or complicated writing?
Today, Rapa Nui is written using a simple Roman alphabet with a few additions to indicate certain sounds.
For example, ŋ
indicates the sound of “ng” as in “thing.” A bar above vowels turns them into longer ones: ā ē ī ō ū
.
Still, most people don’t write the language much, instead reverting to Spanish. I found some information on Omniglot stating that the first Rapa Nui newspaper was first issued in 2010 but more research showed the first one, called Te Rapa Nui
was created in 1996. I, unfortunately, could not find any proof or edition of either.
But one mystery remains.
Rongorongo.
This strange-sounding word is the name of a writing system discovered on the island in the 19th century and still undeciphered to this day. Well, to be more precise, we’re not even sure this is a writing system. Some experts seem to believe this may have been a mnemonic device to memorize oral traditions.
With only 26 artifacts with the rongorongo writing left and nobody able to read it, whether this was a protowriting of Rapa Nui or not remains unsolved. The little bit we know is based on the few Rapa Nui people who still had some knowledge of rongorongo back in the early 20th century.
Experts who have tried to decipher it have some interesting features though, such as the fact that the text turns at the end of each line. In short, once one line is read from left to right, the reader must turn the entire artifact and read the next line from left to right again, and so on. What a curious feature!
If you’re curious about this script, I highly recommend the below video!
A typical yet special Polynesian language
Like most other Polynesian languages, Rapa Nui is originally a Verb-Subject-Object (VSO) language. Its words usually alternate consonants and vowels one by one and it uses reduplication for a lot of things.
In short, reduplication is the action of doubling a syllable or word in order to modify its meaning. For example:
tiŋaꞌi
= “to kill” →tīŋaꞌiŋaꞌi
= “to kill several people”vānaŋa
= “to talk” →vānaŋanaŋa
= “to chat”
Rapa Nui also features dual pronouns, a common feature in all Polynesian languages. We also found it in Tayo Creole earlier this year:
And yet, due to its isolated situation with the closest other inhabited island 1,931 kilometers away, Rapa Nui evolved largely on its own once its speakers arrived on the island.
For example, one striking difference can be found in the evolution of its dual pronoun system.
While other Polynesian languages have dual pronouns for every case, Rapa Nui only kept the dual version for the first person (ie. “we two people”) for both the inclusive and exclusive (“we two with you” and “we two but not you”). There is only one plural version for the plural of the second and third person:
In recent years, the language is evolving yet again due to its declining speaking population. As most children on the island grow up speaking Spanish and only (potentially) learn Rapa Nui later in life, many features of Spanish are finding their way into Rapa Nui.
The most noticeable is the evolution of the word order in sentences. As I mentioned above, Rapa Nui is originally a VSO language but some research has found more and more sentences becoming SVO instead, like in Spanish.
Typical Spanish words like y (“and), pero (“but”), etc. are also used daily in otherwise complete Rapa Nui sentences.1
Verb phrase
Rapa Nui, like other Polynesian languages, does not conjugate the verb based on the person and tense. Instead, it relies on prepositions (and postpositions sometimes) to inflect the meaning of the verb.
The particle he
is a preposition indicating either the past, present, or future. Inconvenient? Well, that’s actually not as complicated as it seems.
This particle indicates the immediate unemphatic future, the generalized present or the narrative past :
He oho au he ha'uru.
= I go to sleep (I’m off to bed)He aha 'a raua?
= What are they doing?He mantia i te kahu i te paruiŋa i te hare. =
The clothes got stained in the course of painting the house.
The particle e
indicates the future in most cases, although it can be used to indicate present obligations like:
E tunu au i te kai.
= I must cook a meal.
If combined with certain postpositions, its meaning changes:
with
'a
→ indicates an action in the “normal” presentE tunu 'a Nua i te kai.
= Nua is cooking the meal
with
ro
→ indicates the future in an undetermined timeE mana'u ro mai au ki a korua.
= I shall be thinking about all of you.
The past has numerous preposition particles that can be used too:
Ko
→ indicates an action in the past ending in a state that is presentKo 'avai 'a au i te maika ki to'oku taina.
= I gave the bananas to my brother.Ko ha'uru 'a te poki.
= The children are still sleeping. (indicating they have been for some time)
i
→ indicates an action finished in the pastA Papi i ma'u i te rama.
→ Papi took the torch.
Now, things can get complicated for new learners only knowing the above rules. Indeed, combining i
with he
later can create a past in the past:
I hoki era au, he takea e au a Erena.
= When I had returned, I saw Erena.
For the future, the particle ka/ki
can also be used instead of he
. Ka
is used for the second person while ki
is used for the first and third person. This being said, ka
is now often used for all three.
Matahiti ena a au ka oho ki Hiva.
= Next year, I’m going to Chile.
Side note: Ka/Ki is also used for the imperative:
Ka hakarē ta'a ŋa poki.
= Leave your children behind.
There are apparently a lot more combinations possible creating nuances based on which preposition is associated with which postposition. If you wish to learn Rapa Nui, I highly encourage you to look into Rapanui A Descriptive Grammar by Veronica du Feu to learn more about particles.
Negation
Every time I dove deep into lesser-known languages, I found negations to be the most simple part to understand in these languages. Rapa Nui seems to be the exception confirming the rule.
Indeed, Rapa Nui has a quite complicated system to express the negation.
First, there are four potential particles: e ko, 'ina, kai, ta'e
and 'o
. These can then be combined to create double negations that keep the negative meaning (ie. not working like in English where a double negation turns a sentence into a positive one, as in “I’m not not saying you’re wrong.”).
On top of this, some of these negatives carry tense and therefore erase the need for the tense/aspect marker.
For example, Kai
is the negation for past actions only:
Kai iri au.
= I didn’t go up.
Eko
indicates the negation for present and future tenses and has an emphatic connotation:
E ko iri au.
= I shall not go.E ko 'avai e au e tahi taŋata i tāꞌaku poki.
= I won’t give my child to anybody.
'o
, 'ina
and ta'e
still require the aspect marker though:
'o
= “surely not!”Ka tau 'o koe e ha'ere ena pe na!
= Surely it wasn’t nice of you to walk off like that!
'ina
= non-emphatic negation'ina he aŋa mo te taŋata
= People have no work.
Ta'e
= negates the word it’s in front of, even when it’s a noun:Te kahu nei kahu ta'e mahana
= This is not a warm garment.
Now. As I indicated, double negations are a thing in Rapa Nui. They usually serve to put an emphasis on the negation and add some extra meaning to the sentence:
Kai … 'o
→ indicates a surprise caused by something not realized:Kai hini 'o koe!
= That didn’t take you long!
'Ina … kai
→ Serves to denying an expressed or implied affirmation'Ina kai turu.
= No, I didn’t go down.
One single double negation serves to indicate the positive: Ta'e … 'o
. It also adds the meaning of “surely” as in:
Ta'e 'a'au mau 'a i ma'u mai i te me'e.
= It was surely you who brought those things.
Phew, what a complicated system! Was I to learn the language, I reckon this would surely take time to internalize! But I also believe this gives the language more nuance and must be extremely useful in daily life.
Reduplication
As mentioned before, duplication of a syllable or word is a common feature of Polynesian languages. Rapa Nui is no exception here. It has many possible uses:
Expressing plurality of a noun through its verb: By duplicating either the first syllable or the last two syllables of a verb, it can be turned into the plural form:
Ka himene korua!
= Sing! →Ka himenemene korua!
= Sing (all of you!)Ko tere 'a te hoi.
= The horse ran off →Ko tetere 'a te hoi.
= The horses ran off.
Indicating a repeated action, as indicated before:
hoa
= to throw →hoahoa
= to throw various things.
Indicating intensity:
piro
= rotten →piropiro
= completely rotten
Indicating attenuation:2
'ua
= to rain →'ua’ua
= to drizzle
Finally, some words change meaning drastically in unpredictable manners:
haŋu
= to breathe →haŋuhaŋu
= to pantmanaꞌu
= to think →mānaꞌunaꞌu
= to be worried
Ever since I discovered the power of using duplication to modify the meaning of a word when I learned Mandarin, I’ve always wondered why not more languages used this cute and convenient way to expand vocabulary!
Basic sentences
Before we move on to the available resources, let’s see a few basic useful sentences:
'Iorana!
= Hello!/Goodbye!Pē hē (a) koe?
= How are you?Riva-riva.
= (I’m) fine.He oho au ki tō'oku hare.
= I’m going home.'I Rapa Nui a au e noho nei.
= I live in Rapa Nui.Mai te Porinetia a au.
= I come from Polynesia.E hia tara?
= How much does it cost? (= How much money?)E hia o'ou taina?
= How many siblings do you have?Ko ai tu'u 'iŋoa?
= What is your name?Ko Mathias to'oku 'iŋoa.
= My name is Mathias.Kai aŋi-aŋi 'ana au.
= I don’t understand.Māuru-uru!
= Thank you!Ē-ē
= YesIna
= No
Where to learn
Easter Island has gained tremendous popularity ever since it opened in the 60s thanks to the Moai statues. And yet, its language unfortunately suffers from a clear lack of information online.
The two main resources to learn the Rapa Nui language are the following two books I used to write this piece:
A Grammar of Rapa Nui → Available for free here
Rapanui (A Descriptive Grammar) → Available for purchase on Routledge or with an account on Perlego.
Strangely enough, the Wikipedia page is quite complete, although I think tenses should be explained as well. Still, if you’re curious about other peculiar aspects of Rapa Nui, the section about expressing the alienable and inalienable possession is worth a look.
There are also 4 basic “lessons” on the Unilang forum page and a few sentences on EasterIsland.Travel.
You can also find a complete dictionary online here.
For those speaking Spanish, this old website is filled with example sentences and typically needed expressions.
When it comes to hearing the language, good luck. There isn’t much at all. All I found was this Youtube playlist of short lessons and the below video (subtitled in English) of someone who learned the language.
Final thoughts
What a curious island this is! Between the magnificent language that is Rapa Nui, the strange writing system Rongorongo, the Moai statues, and the island’s isolated location, researching this piece made me feel like I was visiting an entirely new world.
Talking about this, you’ll have noticed I just referred to the Moai statues twice in the last few paragraphs. I didn’t talk about them during this piece because they had (seemingly at least) no relation to the language itself but their story is just as fascinating as the rest.
After all, these 4-meter-high statues are on average 14 tons. How people placed them is as much a mystery as Rongorongo and Stonehedge.
If you want to dig more into the Moai, this explanatory video will scratch that itch for you.
I have to admit, while I had never heard of this island before, Easter Island is now on my bucket list of places to visit one day.
Did it get on yours?
Researchers are talking about this as if it is a change in the language, which I think is debatable. After all, I use other languages’ words in my daily life because some are more convenient or “on-point” than the language I’m using. For example, I always say otsukaresama おつかれさま (“thank you for your work”) at the end of the day to friends who know Japanese, even when we’re both not Japanese people. Still, for an endangered language, I reckon having words being replaced by another language’s might indeed be considered an evolution of the language. Anyway…
Yes, the opposite of the previous one! 🤯