Tabiteuea North, 1979    (photo by Steve Trussel) Click for large image.

KIRIBATI, (pronounced like kee-ree-bus, the native pronunciation of Gilberts) is a small island republic in the middle of the Pacific, with a population of about 70,000 Micronesians. Formerly part of the British Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, Kiribati became independent in 1979, while I was there on leave for a year from my graduate studies at the University of Hawaii, doing linguistic research for the Kiribati Peace Corps Language Handbook.

Kiribati Bibliography: the latest version, extensively updated, with title and topical indexes. A Chronological Bibliography of Banaba Treaty of Friendship Between the United States of America and the Republic of Kiribati, signed at Tarawa September 20, 1979. (Thanks to John D. Boswell for supplying a copy!) Kiribati Links

Kiribati in the News   photo by Franco Salmoiraghi - click to enlarge 2000 greeted with song, dance - January 1, 2000 (The Japan Times) Date Line Politics - August, 1999 (Honolulu Magazine) U.N. admits Nauru, Kiribati, Tonga - September 16, 1999 (The Japan Times) U.N. entry of Kiribati, Nauru OK'd - June 27, 1999 (The Japan Times) Christmas cleared for spaceport - September 17, 1998 (The Japan Times) Tiny Island's Date-Line Jog in Race for Millennium - Mar 23, 1997 (Nicholas D. Kristof) Last sunset of the 20th Century - Jan 25, 1997 (Cleo Paskal) Pacific braces for millennium storm over matter of degrees - Jan 25, 1996 (Quentin Letts)

One of Robin White's Kiribati woodblock prints, "On the beach at Bikenibeu" (1992)

Gilbertese (te taetae ni Kiribati)

From my collection of Gilbertese linguistic data, I've selected a few of the more interesting items. Among these are the earliest known descriptions of the language, Horatio Hale's 966-word list, collected in 1841, as part of the U.S. Exploring Expedition 1837-1842, and published in 1846 with the report of the expedition, and a 320-word list, published in 1847 (collected in 1845) by M. Fabre, a doctor aboard a French ship which picked up a canoe-load of drift Gilbertese, given here in my translation of the original French, with the word list in English order.

Hale's Tarawan Vocabulary (1846)
Fabre's Polynesian Vocabularies (1847)

Caution: Both the Kiribati-English Dictionary and the English-Kiribati Finderlist below are works in progress, still being edited and proofread. They are posted here 'as-is' for the benefit of researchers, but numerous typographical and other errors must certainly exist, so they should be used with caution and the understanding that the data should be verified. Please send any notices of errors or corrections to e-mail.

A Combined Kiribati-English Dictionary based on the works of Bingham and Sabatier/Oliva compiled by Trussel and Groves 1978 revised and edited by Stephen Trussel 2003 A   B   E   I   K   M   N   NG   O   R   T   U   W

An English-Kiribati Finderlist An English index based on and linked to the Dictionary compiled by Stephen Trussel 2003 A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   I   J   K   L   M   N   O   P   Q   R   S   T   U   V   W   X   Y   Z

Descriptions of the Kiribati Language Stephen Trussel University of Hawaii 1983

Peace Corps Language Handbook Series: Kiribati Language Lessons These handbooks, which I produced with EIL in 1979, are long out of print, and unavailable anywhere else that I know of. In 2003 I began converting them to web pages, but the process was interrupted after about 10 lessons in each book. In Aug. 2010, I heard once again that Peace Corps had no copies available, and as I'd received numerous requests to increase the online inventory, I began scanning the remaining chapters, presented here as pdfs... Communication and Culture Handbook Introduction A. First Contact / Personal History 1. Greetings 2. What's your name? 3. How old are you? 4. Where are you from? 5. M'aneaba speech 6. How long? 7. Where do you live? 8. The farewell B. Language Learning 9. The language learner 10. What's it in Kiribati? 11. Conversation 12. I don't understand 13. Some help C. Family 14. The family 15. My brothers and sisters D. Arranging a Meeting 16. Time 17. Place E. Getting Around 18. Do you know the way? 19. Meeting 20. The Gilbert Group 21. Travel 22. How far? 23. When does it come? 24. How long does it take? F. Commerce 25. At the store G. The House 26. A Kiribati house H. Health 27. Illness 28. The body 29. Bathing I. The Meal 30. The invitation 31. Dinner 32. Time to eat 33. Smoking J. Occupations 34. Occupations 35. How to make things K. Education 36. How many kinds of schools in Kiribati? 37. Go to the blackboard 38. Reading and writing L. Geography / Resources 39. On the beach 40. The coconut tree 41. The toddy cutter 42. The pandanus tree 43. Plants and animals of Kiribati M. The Sea 44. The lagoon and the oceanside 45. The Kiribati canoe 46. Fishing 47. Ikarii: bony-fish N. Social Activities 48. Clothing 49. Games 50. Religions 51. Recreation O. Civil Structure 52. The M'aneaba 53. Independence 54. Government workers P. Miscellany 55. Weather 56. Things I did today 57. Opposites 58. Do you like it here? 59. Tools 60. Marriage and children 61. Useful expressions English-Kiribati Glossary Kiribati-English Glossary Grammar Handbook 1. Sounds and Spelling a. The vowels b. The nasals c. The consonants d. Nasals before other consonants 2. Dialects 3. Intransitive Sentence Order a. Position of additional material 4. Transitive Sentence Order 5. Interrogatives - Part 1 a. yes - no questions b. negative questions c. tag questions d. tiaki 6. Interrogatives Part 2 - Who, Whose a. antai - who b. antena - whose 7. Interrogatives - Part 3 - What, How Many a. teraa - what b. raa - what, which? c. iraua - how many? d. Notes on asking 'what' e. Notes on asking 'the how many-th' 8. Interrogatives - Part 4 - When, Where, Why a. nningai - when b. iia - where c. maiia - from where d. bukin teraa - why INTERROGATIVE REVIEW EXERCISES 9. Interrogatives - Part 5 - Question Verbs a. ngaa - to be where b. aera - to do what c. uara - to be how d. nakea - to go where e. kangaa - to do how f. rikea - to pass by where g. iraanna - to do in what way 10. Imperatives - Part 1 a. basic imperative formation b. negative imperatives c. Imperatives with an(i) d. lengthened vowels EXERCISES 11. Imperatives - Part 2 1. formed with na a. first person plural b. second person c. negatives with na aki 2. with ke 3. taiaoka, butiiko 4. imperative verbs EXERCISES 12. Negatives 1. aki - not 2. tuai, tuai men - not yet, never 3. negative response to questions a. aki b. tiaki c. akea EXERCISES 13. Nouns - Introductory 1. Nominalization 2. Possession 3. Plurality 4. Gender 14. The Article 1. te 2. taian(i) 3. te naa n 4. Person Articles EXERCISES 15. Pluralization 1. absence of te 2. presence of taian(i) 3. relative pronouns 4. demonstrative pronouns 5. Numbers 6. other quantity words 7. subject pronouns 8. objects 9. taan(i) EXERCISES 16. Numbers - Part 1 - Introductory 1. -ua 2. 1-10 3. 10-100 4. 100-1,000 5. 1,000-1,000,000 6. over 1,000,000 7. years 8. how many? EXERCISES 17. Numbers - Part 2 - Classifiers 1. -man 2. ira-man 3. position of numerals a. teuana 4. tabe a. tatabe 5. other classifiers a. note on teni and wani EXERCISES 18. Numbers - Part 3 -Ordinals 1. ordinals 2. used verbally 3. distributive 4. fractions 5. approximation 6. mathematics EXERCISES 19. Pronouns Introductory - Summary 1. emphatic 2. subject 3. object 4. possessive 5. poss. suffix 6. relative 7. demonstrative a. relative time b. relative place c. demonstrative time d. demonstrative place EXERCISES 20. Subject Pronouns EXERCISES 21. Emphatic/ Independent Pronouns EXERCISES 22. Object Pronouns a. reflexives EXERCISES 23. Possession - Part 1 - Independent pronouns EXERCISES 24. Possession - Part 2 - Suffixed pronouns 1. body parts 2. family relationships 3. intimate possessions 4. states of mind and feelings 5. positional relationships 6. nouns formed from verbs EXERCISES 25. Possession - Part 3 - Genitive n EXERCISES 26. Demonstrative Pronouns EXERCISES 27. Person Demonstratives a. Neuter demonstratives EXERCISES 28. Relative Pronouns a. adjectives b. apposition c. person demonstratives + relatives EXERCISES 29. Adjectives EXERCISES 30. Adjectives - Part 2 - Comparison a. intensification b. comparison c. superlative d. equality e. summary EXERCISES 31. Verbs - General 1. Tense 2. Agreement 3. Interrogative, Adverbial & Adjectival 4. Repeated Action 5. Passive 6. Transitive Formation 7. 'To be' 8. 'To have' EXERCISES 32. Agent Marking EXERCISES 33. Reduplication 1. Usually 2. Continuity 3. Adjectives EXERCISES 34. Time Expressions - Adverbial 1. Demonstrative Time Adverbs 2. Adverbial Expressions 3. Auxiliaries 4. Verbs EXERCISES 35. Locative Expressions 1. Locative Adverbs 2. Prepositions EXERCISES 36. Prepositions 1. i 2. irou 3. mai 4. man 5. n(i) 6. nako/nakon EXERCISES 37. Tense / Auxiliaries 1. present/past indeterminate 2. a - immediate indeterminate 3. tabe n - continued action 4. nang(i) - immediate future 5. na - general future 6. a tib'a - immediate past 7. a tia n - completed past 8. additional auxiliaries EXERCISES 38. Conjunctions 1. joining noun phrases 2. joining sentenial structures a. two verbs or adjectives b. second sentence as object of verb c. two simple sentences EXERCISES 39. Conditional Sentences 1. if 2. since, when 3. additional conjunctions EXERCISES 40. Compounding EXERCISES Appendix 1. Higher Numbers - Old System Appendix 2. Numeral classifiers Answers to Written Exercises Index

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The Morning Stars 19th C. Missionary Ships to the Gilberts click to enlarge Story of the Morning Star The Children's Missionary Vessel Rev. Hiram Bingham, Jr. 1866 Sequel 1883 Morning Stars and Missionary Packet by Albert S. Baker, M.A., M.D., B.D. Marshall Islands stamps commemorating the first Morning Star Illustrations from "The Morning Star: History of the Children's Missionary Vessel, and of the Marquesan and Micronesian Missions" by Mrs. Jane S. Warren 1860 click to enlarge see also Jane Resture's The Story of the Morning Star

Louis Becke [1855-1913] Louis Becke, a 19th century Pacific writer, set many of his stories in the Gilbert Islands. I've compiled this bibliography: A Louis Becke Bibliography To provide a sample of Becke's writings, I've transcribed (and slightly annotated) one of his stories here, a grisly tale of treachery and murder in the early 19th century Gilberts, from his collection of stories "The Ebbing of the Tide": Deschard of Oneaka by Louis Becke (1895)

Robert Louis Stevenson [1850-1894] Robert Louis Stevenson's "In the South Seas" has two major sections about his time in the Gilberts, one on Butaritari, and one on Abemama. "In the South Seas" is available on-line as a Gutenburg Project e-text. (A list of thousands of on-line books and references to more can be found at the Free eBooks by Project Gutenberge page. Here is Stevenson's Abemama section at this site: "In the South Seas" Part IV: The Gilberts - Apemama by Robert Louis Stevenson (1900) Robert Louis Stevenson on stamps More on RLS at Richard Dury's Robert Louis Stevenson Web Site.

Arthur Grimble [1888-1956] Here's a little story I wrote based on my recollection of Arthur Grimble's "The Limping Man of Makin-Meang" from his "A Pattern of Islands" (John Murray, 1952). "The Pathway to Heaven" by S. Trussel (1988) And one of Grimble's own from "A Pattern of Islands": "The Calling of the Porpoise" by Arthur Grimble (1952) A new story about calling porpoises: "Eating Out in Butaritari" by Cleo Paskal (1996)

Christmas Island   photo by Franco Salmoiraghi, East-West magazine, Fall/Winter 1986 Click images to enlarge

Christmas (Kiritimati) Island is some 1,500 miles south of Hawai'i, one of the outlying settlements of Kiribati. Here's a copy of the original draft of the essay I wrote for Franco Salmoiraghi's beautiful photo book on Christmas Island in 1986, and a magazine story I did for East-West magazine at that time. The History and People of Christmas Island by Steve Trussel. "Kiritimati: A Christmas Visit" by Steve Trussel. "Christmas Island, 1966" by Bob Thomas.



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Links

Kiribati and Tuvalu Association, "official website of the Kiribati and Tuvalu Association of the UK and the Republic of Ireland." Jane Resture's Kiribati Homepage Pacific Islands Jobs - Job opportunities in the Pacific... Pacific Islands stamps - Pacific Islands Study Circle of Great Britain Pacific Islands links - Moon Handbooks Micronesia Mike Wright's Online English-Kiribati Dictionary

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