Rennellese language
Rennell-Bellona, or Rennellese, is a Polynesian outlier language spoken in the Rennell and Bellona Province of Solomon Islands. A dictionary of the language has been published.
Introduction
History
Rennellese, also known as Rennell or Bellonese, is a Polynesian language that is spoken in the Central Solomon Islands; mainly Rennell and Bellona island. For a great deal of time the Solomon Islands were occupied by the British, and pidgin English had become the main language spoken in the Rennell and Bellona Islands, until World War II. At that time the Rennell and Bellona Islands were a battlefield during the Battle of Midway, between the Japanese and Americans; just like Hawaii. During the battle the Japanese occupied most of the area using it as a base. After World War II had ended, both Rennell and Bellona were still being held by allied forces, until finally gaining independence in 1978. Both islands have been working to develop their own government, and Rennellese has been recognized as the official language.Population
The Solomon Islands have a population of around 940,000, including 658,000 in the independent state of the Solomon Islands; and only a little over 4000 of these people speak Rennellese. Natives who currently live there refer to themselves as Mungiki for the Bellona Islands and Mugaba for the Rennell Islands, and among the younger generation Avaiki is used to reference both. Ethnic groups in these islands are very widespread and distinct. The people of the Rennell and Bellona Islands live in small village communities, with each group having its own culture, and religious practices. As for government issues, the Solomon Islands as a whole is divided, with the islands to the northwest belonging to Papua New Guinea, while the rest of the Solomons are their own independent government. The Rennell and Bellona Islands alone have their own provincial government known as REN-BEL, which recognizes Rennellese/Bellonese as its own language.Phonology
Consonants
The consonants of Rennellese consist of . The letters are regular stops, are the fricatives, are the nasals, is the only lateral, and finally as a pre-nasal.Vowels
The 5 vowels in the system are. Rennellese possess which is a glottal stop used to lengthen vowel sounds. The can be written before or after the vowel it is lengthening, similar to an English apostrophe. Vowel length is also distributed.Syllable structure
The typical syllable structure in Rennellese is. Rennellese favors vowels when making syllables, and not many consonant clusters.Grammar
Basic word order
The traditional word order for Rennellese is VSO, but more commonly among younger generations, SVO word order is used. Researchers speculate that this is due to outside influences from missionaries and World War II. The use of either word order is usually dependent on the person speaking, or whom that person may be speaking with. Both statements and questions may have different ways of being expressed solely based on who the speaker is.Rennellese's morphology is polysynthetic, meaning it has a near-infinite number of morphemes that can be put into a word. Not only can some words have many morphemes, but the range between the amounts is high as well.