| Tahitian | |
|---|---|
| Reo Tahiti Reo Māʼohi | |
| Native to | French Polynesia |
| Ethnicity | 185,000 Tahitians |
Native speakers | 68,260, 37% of ethnic population (2007 census)[1] |
| Official status | |
Recognised minority language in | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | ty |
| ISO 639-2 | tah |
| ISO 639-3 | tah |
| Glottolog | tahi1242 |
Tahitian (Tahitian: Reo Tahiti, part of Reo Māʼohi, languages of French Polynesia)[2] is a Polynesian language, spoken mainly on the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It belongs to the Eastern Polynesian group.
As Tahitian had no written tradition before the arrival of the Western colonists, the spoken language was first transcribed by missionaries of the London Missionary Society in the early 19th century.
- ^ Tahitian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Reo Māʼohi correspond to "languages of natives from French Polynesia", and may in principle designate any of the seven indigenous languages spoken in French Polynesia. The Tahitian language specifically is called Reo Tahiti (See Charpentier & François 2015: 106).