Oceania doesn’t tend to attract a lot of attention, given its relatively low population and many small island countries. Many people haven’t even heard of some of the Pacific Island nations. However, this is a remarkably linguistically diverse area of the world, with hundreds of languages spoken on the various islands in the region. In the Federated States of Micronesia, several different languages are spoken, with natives using English as a lingua franca to speak to those from other areas. One of the biggest indigenous languages in the country is Pohnpeian.
Pohnpeian boasts roughly 30,000 speakers in Micronesia, making it the second-most widely spoken native language in the country, second to Chuukese with 45,000 speakers. Most speakers live in Pohnpei, one of the four states of the country, but an additional 10,000 to 15,000 Pohnpeian speakers are estimated to be residing in U.S. island territories such as Guam and Hawaii. Despite Pohnpeian being one of the biggest languages in the Federated States of Micronesia, however, translation services for the language are scant—which we at TranslationServices.com find regrettable. That’s why we’ve taken it upon ourselves to build our own Pohnpeian translation team.
Reach out today with a request for a free quote for Pohnpeian translation services!
Here’s some more information about Pohnpeian!
Pohnpeian belongs to the Austronesian language family, like the vast majority of languages spoken in Oceania. More specifically, Pohnpeian is part of the Micronesian branch of Oceanic languages, sharing many features with other languages of the region. Pohnpeian default word order is subject-verb-object, which is the same as English, but the order is somewhat flexible thanks to the focus-marking system, which allows the object or other noun phrases or verb phrases to appear at the beginning of a sentence along with a focus marker.
Pohnpeian features a different pronoun system from English, too. Not only is there a dual number in addition to the usual singular and plural, but Pohnpeian also uses different words for “we” depending on whether they want to include the listener. Counting is also tricky in Pohnpeian because there are several categories of measure words depending on characteristics of the nouns being counted, all of which alter the form of the number. Additionally, Pohnpeian uses honorific speech when addressing or talking about those with high status, employing entirely different vocabulary.
Pohnpeian is a complicated language, but since we work with native-speaking translators, overcoming these challenges is no problem for us.
What kind of Pohnpeian translation services are you looking for?
Since we’ve specifically sought out Pohnpeian translators who can work with different types of translation, we’re confident we can accommodate your translation needs, whatever they may be. We work both with translation from Pohnpeian to English, allowing you to share this beautiful culture with the world, and with translation from English to Pohnpeian, bringing more opportunities for the Pohnpeian people to use their unique language. We translate historical documents, Pohnpeian literature, business and academic texts, and more from Pohnpeian to English, and we can translate questionnaires and surveys, business documents, books, websites, apps, games, poetry, and more into Pohnpeian.
We’re eager to get started on your Pohnpeian translation project! Why not reach out today to let us know what you’re looking for?