The United States is a big country—the third-biggest in the world, in fact, in both geographical area and population. But when people picture the United States, they typically just think of the 50 states—the 48 states of the contiguous U.S. plus Alaska and Hawaii. In fact, there’s more to the US than that—the country also oversees a few unincorporated overseas territories, namely Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. It’s the final one in the list, and their native language of Carolinian, that we’re looking at today.
Carolinian is a small language, with only around 3,100 native speakers, a mere fraction of the population of the Northern Mariana Islands. Since it’s a U.S. territory, the dominant language in the region is English, and indeed, most of the population speaks English—but a large portion also speaks Chamorro, a much bigger indigenous language. Regardless, Carolinian persists to this day, even though it’s highly threatened. We at TranslationServices.com are passionate about supporting Carolinian—so we’ve introduced our own new Carolinian translation services.
Want to see a free quote for our Carolinian translation services? Why not message us now?
Discovering Carolinian, an indigenous language of the Northern Mariana Islands
Most speakers of Carolinian live on Saipan, the largest and most populated island in the territory, although a small number also live on Agrigan, where Carolinian is the dominant language. The language belongs to the Chuukic branch of the Micronesian language group, itself part of the massive Austronesian language family that traces its origins back to Taiwan. It’s closely related to a number of other languages, particularly in Micronesia, including Satawalese, Woleaian, Puluwatese, Mortlockese, Chuukese, and Ulithian.
Grammatically, Carolinian is quite different from English. Its default word order is subject-verb-object, but the way the language structures sentences is not like English. For example, Carolinian lacks a proper copula—e dokto, literally “s/he doctor,” means “s/he is a doctor.” If you want to specify a name, such as Wan (“John”), you would say Wan e dokto, literally “John he doctor.” In some cases, the tense is also displayed on the pronoun—for example, ebwe means “s/he will” and esáál means “s/he hasn’t.” As these examples make clear, Carolinian also lacks a gender distinction for its pronoun e, which can translate to either “he” or “she.” Differences like this complicate translation work, but for native Carolinian speakers like our translators, these challenges are easy to overcome.
Carolinian translators available for any kind of project
Carolinian translation services are rare—but here at TranslationServices.com, we’re dedicated to providing the best Carolinian translation services we can. We’ve traveled across Saipan, Agrigan, and elsewhere in the Northern Mariana Islands to locate the best Carolinian translators and recruit them to our team. Our team members are proud of their native language and, since most are also intimately familiar with English, are skilled at translating between the two languages. This allows us to easily offer translation services both to and from Carolinian.
You may be looking for more niche translation services than a general translator can offer, and that’s fine, too. Although our Carolinian translation team is small—since the language itself is small—many of our translators are skilled in various fields and have experience in different types of translation. So, if you’re looking for academic translation services, business translation services, literary translation services, localization services, or something else, just tell us. We’ll work with you to find the best solution we can and match you up with the most suitable Carolinian translator on our team—even if you need someone with specialist knowledge in a particular field.
We can’t wait to help you with your Carolinian translation project. If you’re ready to start working with us, message us now to place your first order!