Editing Gilbertese language (section)

{{Short description|Austronesian language spoken in Kiribati}}
{{Cleanup lang|date=December 2024|iso=gil}}{{Infobox language
| name             = Gilbertese
| altname          = Kiribati, Kiribatese, Tungaru
| nativename       = {{lang|gil|Taetae ni Kiribati}}
| states           = [[Kiribati]]
| ethnicity        = [[Kiribati people|I-Kiribati]]
| speakers         = {{sigfig|118,618|2}}
| date             = 2002–2019
| ref              = e25
| script           = [[Latin script]]<br />([[#Alphabet|Gilbertese alphabet]])
| familycolor      = Austronesian
| fam2             = [[Malayo-Polynesian languages|Malayo-Polynesian]]
| fam3             = [[Oceanic languages|Oceanic]]
| fam4             = [[Micronesian languages|Micronesian]]
| fam5             = [[Central Micronesian languages|Central Micronesian]]
| nation           = {{flag|Kiribati}}
| agency           = [[Kiribati Language Board]]
| iso2             = gil
| iso3             = gil
| glotto           = gilb1244
| glottorefname    = Gilbertese
| notice           = IPA
| map              = Micronesian languages.en.svg
| mapcaption       = Map showing the pre-colonial distribution of the [[Micronesian languages]]; Gilbertese-speaking region is shaded blue and does not include the [[Line Islands]] and [[Rabi Island|Rabi]] in Fiji
}}

'''Gilbertese''' ({{langx|gil|taetae ni Kiribati|link=no}}), also known as '''Kiribati''' (sometimes ''Kiribatese'' or ''Tungaru''), is an [[Austronesian languages|Austronesian language]] spoken mainly in [[Kiribati]]. It belongs to the [[Micronesian languages|Micronesian branch]] of the [[Oceanic languages]].

The word ''Kiribati'', the current name of the islands, is the local adaptation of the European name "Gilberts" to Gilbertese [[phonology]]. Early European visitors, including Commodore [[John Byron]], whose ships happened on [[Nikunau]] in 1765, had named some of the islands the [[Gilbert Islands|Kingsmill or Kings Mill Islands]] or for the Northern group ''les îles Mulgrave'' in French<ref>[[Henry Evans Maude]] (1961). ''Post-Spanish discoveries in the central Pacific. Journal of the Polynesian Society'', 67-111. Very often, this name applied only to the southern islands of the archipelago. ''Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary''. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam Webster, 1997. p. 594.</ref> but in 1820 they were renamed, in French, ''les îles Gilbert'' by Admiral [[Adam Johann von Krusenstern]], after Captain [[Thomas Gilbert (captain)|Thomas Gilbert]], who, along with Captain [[John Marshall (British captain)|John Marshall]], had passed through some of these islands in 1788.
Frequenting of the islands by Europeans, Americans and Chinese dates from whaling and oil trading from the 1820s, when no doubt Europeans learnt to speak it, as Gilbertese learnt to speak English and other languages foreign to them. 
The first ever vocabulary list of Gilbertese was published by the French ''Revue coloniale'' (1847) by an auxiliary surgeon on [[corvette]] ''Le Rhin'' in 1845. His warship took on board a drift Gilbertese of [[Kuria, Kiribati|Kuria]], that they found near [[Tabiteuea]]. However, it was not until [[Hiram Bingham II]] took up missionary work on [[Abaiang]] in the 1860s that the language began to take on the written form known now.

Bingham was the first to translate the Bible into Gilbertese, and wrote several hymn books, a dictionary (1908, posthumous) and commentaries in the language of the Gilbert Islands. Alphonse Colomb, a French priest in [[Tahiti]] wrote in 1888, ''Vocabulaire [[Arorae|arorai]] (îles Gilbert) précédé de notes grammaticales d'après un manuscrit du P. Latium Levêque et le travail de [[Horatio Hale|Hale]] sur la langue [[Tarawa]] / par le P. A. C.''. Father Levêque named the Gilbertese ''Arorai'' (from [[Arorae]]) when [[Horatio Hale]] called them ''Tarawa''. This work was also based on the first known description of Gilbertese in English, published in 1846, in the volume ''Ethnology and Philology'' of the [[United States Exploring Expedition|U.S. Exploring Expedition]], compiled by [[Horatio Hale]].

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 priest. It was later partially translated into English by Sister Olivia, with the help of the [[South Pacific Commission]].