Kapingamarangi is a Polynesian language spoken in Pohnpei state in the Federated States of Micronesia. In 1995 there were about 1,000 speakers of Kapingamarangi on Kapingamarangi atoll, and 2,000 speakers in the village of Pohnrakied on Pohnpei island. There are also some Kapingamarangi speakers on other nearby islands.
Kapingamarangi is taught in schools, and is widely used in the community, churches and literature. It is related to Nukuoro, Rarotongan, Samoan, Tuamotuan and Tahitian.
Kapingamarangi was first documented in 1557 by Hernando de Grigalvan, a Spanish explorer. In 1914 a Japanese resident of Kapingamarangi atoll introduced a way to write the language based the on Japanese script, although this was never widely used. A way to write Kapingamarangi with the Latin alphabet and based on the Nukuoro orthography was developed in 1917 by a Nukuoro missionary. This was used until 1947, when Americans started to make changes to the spelling system. In 1974 a standard way to write the language was introduced in the Kapingamarangi Lexicon.
Download an alphabet chart for Kapingamarangi1 (Excel)
Source: https://www.bible.com/bible/1354/LUK.11.KPG
Source: https://www.bible.com/bible/1/LUK.11.KJV
Information about Kapingamarangi | Numbers | Tower of Babel
Information about the Kapingamarangi languages
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapingamarangi_language
https://www.ethnologue.com/language/kpg/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv9zckhc
Kapingamarangi talking dictionary http://talkingdictionary.swarthmore.edu/kapingamarangi/
Languages written with the Latin alphabet
Page last modified: 01.05.24
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