Language

The Nauruan or Nauru language is an Austronesian language that is spoken exclusively on the island of Nauru. There is no adequate written grammar of the language, and its relationships to other Micronesian languages are unclear. English is widely understood. Nauru is regarded as one of the most Westernized South Pacific countries. This is one of Unique Cultural Characteristics In Nauru that you should know.

According to a report published in Sydney in 1937, there was a variety of dialects until Nauru became a German colony in 1888, and until the publication of the first texts written in Nauruan. The varieties were so diverse that people from different districts frequently had difficulty understanding each other completely. With the growing influence of foreign languages and the proliferation of Nauruan texts, the dialects merged into a standardized language, which Alois Kayser and Philip Delaporte promoted through dictionaries and translations. Today, dialectal variation is significantly reduced. There is an eponymous dialect spoken in Yaren and the surrounding area, which is only slightly different.

Philip Delaporte published his pocket German-Nauruan dictionary in 1907. The dictionary is small (10.5 14 cm), with 65 pages dedicated to the glossary and another dozen to phrases, which are organized alphabetically by German. In Nauruan, approximately 1650 German words are glossed, often by phrases or synonymous forms. The glosses contain approximately 1300 'unique' Nauruan forms, including all those occurring in phrases, ignoring diacritical marks. The accents used there are uncommon; only one accent (the tilde) is currently in use.