| Pohnpeian | |
|---|---|
| Mahsen en Pohnpei [honorific] Lokaiahn Pohnpei [common] | |
| Native to | Micronesia |
| Region | Pohnpei |
Native speakers | 29,000 (2001)[1] |
Austronesian
| |
| Dialects | |
| Latin script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | pon |
| ISO 639-3 | pon |
| Glottolog | pohn1238 |
Pohnpeian is a Micronesian language spoken as the indigenous language of the island of Pohnpei in the Caroline Islands. Pohnpeian has approximately 30,000 (estimated) native speakers living in Pohnpei and its outlying atolls and islands with another 10,000-15,000 (estimated) living off island in parts of the US mainland, Hawaii and Guam. It is the second-most widely spoken native language of the Federated States of Micronesia[2] the first being Chuukese.
Pohnpeian features a "high language", referred to as Meing[3] or Mahsen en Meing including specialized vocabulary used when speaking to, or about people of high rank.[2]