Tahiti is main and largest island located in the windward islands of the group known as French Polynesia, in the archipelago of the Society Islands. This island was originally called O Tahiti or Tahiti Nui by the Tahitian natives, but later became just Tahiti with the contact of European explorers. (Fischer) Although Samuel Wallis, an English explorer was the first to discover the area. A French explorer by the name of Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, later came in 1768 and claimed the island as French territory. (Fischer) Due to the French taking over Tahiti, Tahitian and French are now the official the languages of Tahiti. However, Tahitian is also spoken on some islands of Tuamotu and New Caledonia located very closely to Tahiti Nui. Here is a map to illustrate how close these islands lie to each other.
(Rendezvous Tours)As you can see, the islands are geographically close together. Due to this geographical state, it is found that around 125,000 people speak Tahitian among these islands. (Omniglot) However, what is found to be quite interesting is that the Tahitian language is genetically related to two other languages, Rarotongan and Hawaiian. Rarotonga is an island that is part of the Cook Island group, and Hawaii is the farthest Polynesian island located around 2600 miles north of Tahiti. Even though the distance between these two islands and Tahiti may seem great, it is interesting to know that the Tahitian language's lexical similarity is 85% with respect to Rarotongan and 76% with respect to Hawaiian. (Ethnologue) The lexical term comes from lexicostatistics, which is the comparison of vocabulary and the expression of relationship between the languages represented in persentages. (Lynch 15) For example: Both hoe and ua in Tahitian and Hawaiian have the exact same definition. Hoe meaning paddle, and ua meaning rain. The way in which sentence patterns are structured or put in order are also very similar. Here is an example taken from our book "Pacific Languages." (Lynch 117):
Like most Polynesian islands of the Pacific, the Tahitian dance was at one time banned. It is even stated in the Tahitian bible translated by the missionaries that any sort of dance was forbidden. However, much like how the Hawaiians have come to bring back the hula, Tahitians were able to bring back their dance. It is here that the Tahitian language is able to survive. Within their songs and chants, the ancient stories of chiefs and their land are able to be told through their native tongue or also known as Te Reo Tahiti. If you are more interest in Tahitian dance, here is a good video clip of a Tahitian group called Otea Polynesia.
Works Cited:
Ager, Simon. "Tahitian (te reo tahiti/te reo MÄʼohi)." Omniglot Writing Systems and Languages of the World. 1998. Omniglot. 7 Feb. 2009 <http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tahitian.htm>.
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