The Pacific Island is home to some of the greatest linguistic diversity in the world. While many languages spoken in Oceania hail from the same language family (Austronesian), the number of individual languages is high, likely due to the isolated nature of island life. This is true of the Cook Islands, a self-governing Pacific Island nation in free association with New Zealand, which is responsible for the Cook Islands’ defense and foreign affairs. While English is the most widely spoken language in the Cook Islands, Cook Islands Māori, the indigenous language of the nation, is also spoken by more than 75% of Cook Islanders.
This means that Cook Islands Māori, which locals usually just call Māori when there’s no need to distinguish it from New Zealand Māori, boasts roughly 21,000 speakers. Speakers may also call the language Māori Kūki 'Āirani, Te reo Ipukarea, or Rarotongan, although this last one is controversial. While Cook Islands Māori is, as one would expect, closely related to New Zealand Māori, it’s nonetheless a distinct language with a degree of mutual intelligibility. At TranslationServices.com, we’re proud to work with minority languages like Cook Islands Māori, thanks to our skilled Cook Islands Māori translators.
Contact us now for a free quote for our Cook Islands Māori translation services.
What is Cook Islands Māori like, anyway?
As a Tahitic Polynesian language, Cook Islands Māori is closely related to Tahitian and New Zealand Māori and more distantly related to other languages spoken throughout Oceania. Legally, Pukapukan is classified as a dialect of Cook Islands Māori, even though linguists consider it a separate language more similar to Samoan or Tokelauan. Cook Islands Māori is written in the Latin alphabet, although debates about the precise orthography are ongoing.
Like other Polynesian languages, Cook Islands Māori has almost no inflection. Case is indicated through grammatical particles, not inflection. Verbs are similar—tense, aspect, and mood are marked via pre-verbal particles rather than inflection on the verb itself. Cook Islands Māori features more pronouns than English—not only does it feature dual pronouns, which specify a group of two people, in addition to singular and plural, but it also makes a clusivity distinction in the non-singular first person. This means that Cook Islands Māori has multiple words for “we” depending on whether the listener is included. Usually, the verb comes first in a Cook Islands Māori sentence.
What kind of Cook Islands Māori translation services are you looking for?
We’ve compiled a skilled team of Cook Islands Māori translators to translate a wide range of documents to and from Cook Islands Māori. As native speakers of the language, they’re well versed in all the subtleties and nuances that the language presents, which allows them to create natural-sounding translations in both directions. Have Cook Islands Māori historical documents or literature (traditional or contemporary) that you want to share with more people? Let us translate them into English! Perhaps instead you want to translate educational materials or books, websites, apps, games, poems, or other interesting content into Cook Islands Māori so that children can learn in their own language and adults can enjoy great content in their ancestral language—we can translate English-language content smoothly into Cook Islands Māori, too!
If you want reliable Cook Islands Māori translation services, simply message us with your translation project details.