The Federated States of Micronesia is an archipelagic country in the Pacific Ocean with just over 100,000 inhabitants—and yet, the nation contains a whopping 18 separate indigenous languages. Such linguistic diversity is common throughout Oceania, with islands often playing host to their own, unique language. In the Federated States of Micronesia, Chuukese and Pohnpeian are the biggest indigenous languages by a long shot—but Yapese emerges as the fifth-biggest.
It only takes around 5,000 native speakers to position Yapese as the fifth-biggest language in the Federated States of Micronesia. However, even if the absolute number of speakers may be low, the Yapese people are proud of their culture, traditions, and language, and while the language is endangered, with more and more Yapese people shifting to English, many Yapese people are interested in revitalizing and preserving the language. One way to support Yapese is by offering translation services, and that’s what we at TranslationServices.com have decided to do with our new Yapese translation team.
Quotes for our Yapese translation services are totally free—all you have to do is request yours.
Let’s dive into the intricacies of Yapese.
Yapese is spoken on Yap, located in the western portion of the Federated States of Micronesia. Specifically, it’s native to the Yap Main Islands, consisting of Yap Proper, Gagil-Tamil, Maap, and Rumung, which are distinguished from the Yap Neighboring Islands, where are number of other languages are spoken. The Yapese language is classified under the Austronesian language family—like all other indigenous languages in Micronesia and across the Pacific Island nations—but the precise classification of Yapese within the Oceanic subfamily is unclear.
Yapese strings words together in a sentence in a verb-subject-object order, which is common among Austronesian languages. It’s also no stranger to the grammatical feature of reduplication, where a word is fully or partially repeated to alter its meaning, which is another commonality in the Austronesian family. For example, the inchoative verb roow (“to become red”) turns into the stative verb roowroow (“to be red”) when reduplicated. When paired with the prefix si-, reduplication can also soften a verb, as seen in toey (“chop”) becoming sitoeytoey (“to chop a little”). Yapese pronouns get complex, too—the language includes dual pronouns in addition to the regular singular and plural sets, and it distinguishes between inclusive and exclusive “we” for the dual and plural pronouns—in other words, it specifies whether is included when the speaker says “we.” Translating such nuances can be tricky, and that’s why we recommend working with our native-speaking Yapese translators.
Our top-rate Yapese translation services catered to you
Simply offering Yapese translation services isn’t enough for us—we want to provide our clients across Micronesia and the rest of the world with the best Yapese translation services we can. Our team consists of passionate Yapese native speakers with the skills to translate to and from their language for a wide range of projects, tailoring their services to fit the individual needs of each client.
We accommodate clients across a large array of industries and sectors, so if you have any special requests, simply let us know. Maybe you’d like to translate lesson materials into Yapese to help local children gain meaningful exposure to the language, or perhaps you’re looking to cater materials from your organization to the Yapese people. Maybe you want to share Yapese stories with the international community, or maybe you want to target a Yapese audience with your creative works—whether that means a novel or a mobile app. Whatever your Yapese translation project, our team is here for you, ready to translate to or from Yapese.
Take a moment now to take advantage of our Yapese translation services! Message us today to place your first order.