Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Hiram Bingham II (1831–1908) was the first to translate the Bible into Gilbertese, and also wrote hymns for the Gilbertese language. Joanna Gordon-Clark writes of their religious belief: The Gilbert (and Ellice) Islanders had a strong set of beliefs of their own, pre the Christian missionaries; they had a strong foundation myth , involving ...
The official name of the language is te taetae ni Kiribati, or 'the Gilbertese language', but the common name is te taetae n aomata, or 'the language of the people'. The first complete and comprehensive description of this language was published in Dictionnaire gilbertin–français of Father Ernest Sabatier (981 pp, 1952–1954), a Catholic ...
The people of Kiribati speak Gilbertese, an Oceanic language. English is the other official language, but is not used very often outside the island capital of Tarawa. It is more likely that some English words are mixed in their use with Gilbertese. Older generations of I-Kiribati tend to use more complicated versions of the language.
For several millennia, the islands were inhabited by Austronesian peoples who had arrived from the Solomon Islands or Vanuatu.The I-Kiribati or Gilbertese people settled what would become known as the Gilbert Islands (named for British captain Thomas Gilbert by von Krusenstern in 1820) some time in between 3000 BC [1] [2] and 1300 AD. [3]
The Kiribati people, also known as I-Kiribati, Tungaru, or Gilbertese, are the indigenous people of Kiribati. They speak the Gilbertese language . They numbered 103,000 as of 2008.
The people of Tungaru (native name of the Gilbertese) are still excellent seafarers, capable of making ocean crossings in locally made vessels using traditional navigation techniques. [16] Thomas Gilbert, captain of the East India Company vessel Charlotte, was the first European to describe Tarawa, arriving on 20 June 1788. He did not land.
Japanese fishermen started fishing for tuna in Kiribati from the late 1970s, and reportedly engage in occasional promiscuous liaisons with local Gilbertese prostitutes in Betio. [10] A few Japanese nationals also settled down in Kiribati and acquired Gilbertese citizenship from the 1980s.
The current name for the Island, Nikumaroro, comes from the name of a legendary goddess of the Gilbertese people, "Nei Manganibuka". It is said that she comes from Samoa , is associated with the Buka tree, and first taught the Gilbertese canoe craft along with the lore of ocean navigation. [ 32 ]