Appendix:Oceanic Swadesh lists

This is a Swadesh list of Oceanic languages, specifically Hawaiian, Maori, Tahitian, Tuvaluan, Fijian and Big Nambas, compared with that of English.

Presentation

For further information, including the full final version of the list, read the Wikipedia article: Swadesh list.

American linguist Morris Swadesh believed that languages changed at measurable rates and that these could be determined even for languages without written precursors. Using vocabulary lists, he sought to understand not only change over time but also the relationships of extant languages. To be able to compare languages from different cultures, he based his lists on meanings he presumed would be available in as many cultures as possible. He then used the fraction of agreeing cognates between any two related languages to compute their divergence time by some (still debated) algorithms. Starting in 1950 with 165 meanings, his list grew to 215 in 1952, which was so expansive that many languages lacked native vocabulary for some terms. Subsequently, it was reduced to 207, and reduced much further to 100 meanings in 1955. A reformulated list was published posthumously in 1971.

List

This list is currently incomplete: You can help by expanding it.

№	English	Hawaiian ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi	Maori Māori	Tahitian Mā’ohi	Tuvaluan te ggana tuvalu	Fijian na vosa vaka Viti	Big Nambas V'ənen Taut
1	I	au	ahau, au	au, vau	au, aku kita (affective, i.e. poor me)	au (subject), o yau	kana
2	you (singular)	ʻoe	koe	'oe	koe kita (affective, i.e. poor me)	o (subject), o iko	nakəm
3	he	ʻo ia, ʻoia, ia, ʻoia nei, ʻoia ala	ia	'oia, 'ōna	ia	e (subject), o koya	hin
4	we	kāua (dual, incl.) kākou (pl., incl.) māua (dual, excl.) mākou (pl., excl.)	tāua tātou māua mātou	tāua (dual, incl.) tātou (pl., incl.) māua (dual, excl.) mākou (pl., excl.)	tāua (dual inclusive) tātou (plural inclusive) māua (dual exclusive) mātou (plural exclusive)	keirau (dual, exclusive) keitou (paucal, exclusive) keimami (plural, exclusive) (e)daru, o kēdaru (dual, inclusive) (da)tou, o kedatou (paucal, inclusive) (e)da, o keda (plural, inclusive)	nakəd (inclusive) kam'em' (exclusive)
5	you (plural)	ʻolua (dual) ʻoukou (pl.)	koutou	'outou	koulua (dual), koutou (plural)	(o)drau, o kemudrau (dual) (o)dou, o kemudou (paucal) (o)nī, o kemunī (plural)	kam'i
6	they	lāua (dual) lākou (pl.)	rātou	rātou	lāua (dual), lātou (plural)	(e)rau, o rau (dual) (e)ratou, o iratou (paucal) (e)ra, o ira (plural)	hir
7	this	kēia, ia, ʻoia, nei, neia	tēnei	teie	tēnei (close to the speaker)	qō	laha
8	that	kēnā, nā; kēlā, lā, ia	tēnā, tērā	terā	tēnā (close to the person spoken to) tēlā (away from both)	qori (near you) yā (over there)	lara
9	here	maʻaneʻi, eia nei	konei	iho nei	(i) konei (close to the speaker)	kē qō	atka
10	there	laila, malaila, i laila	konā, korā	iho na	(i) konā (close to the person spoken to) (i) kolā (away from both)	keri, qori (near you) keā, yā (far from you)	lera
11	who	wai, ʻo wai, na wai	wai	vai (interrogative)	ko oi (interrogative)	cei	ak
12	what	aha, he aha, pehea	aha	aha (interrogative)	ā (interrogative)	cava	v'ata
13	where	aia i hea, ʻauhea, ai hea	hea	teihea (no movement, interrogative)	tēfea (interrogative, singular) kofea (non-singular)	vei	ip'i
14	when	ināhea	ahea, nōhea	ahea (interrogative)	anafea (interrogative, in the past) māfea (interrogative, in the future)	ni	v'aran
15	how	pehea	pēhea	nāhea (interrogative)	pēfea (interrogative)	vakacava	-
16	not	ʻaʻole	kāore, kīhai	'eiaha	sē	sega ni	-a- -ah- (negative prefix)
17	all	āpau, pauloa, pau, papau like ʻole, puni, holoʻokoʻa, paunui	katoa	ana'e	katoa	kece, taucoko	ar-, udlani
18	many	nui, lau	maha	rahi	uke	(e) levu na	nelnal
19	some	kākaʻikahi	ētahi	nau, tau	nīsi (i.e. some other)	(e) sō na	kinkin
20	few	kākaʻikahi, wahi, kekahi, ʻuʻuku, liʻiliʻi	ruarua, torutoru	ma'a	nāi, mū, mō, sē uke	(e) lailai na	-
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