Norfuk
Language · official in 1 country
Norf'k blends 18th-century English with Tahitian and reached Norfolk Island with settlers from the Pitcairn Islands, whose Pitkern it descends from. The Norfolk Island Language (Norf'k) Act 2004 made it a language of the island, co-official with English. In 2007 the United Nations added it to its list of endangered languages.
The language on record
- Own name
- Norf’k
- ISO 639-3
- PIH
- Script
- Latin
- Family
- English and Tahitian creole
- Official in
- 1 country
Where Norfuk is official
Norfolk Island, a dependency rather than a sovereign state, is the only record. Norfuk shares official status there with English under the island's own act of 2004.
Official beside Norfuk
About Norfuk
How Pitcairn speech reached Norfolk Island
The people of Pitcairn resettled on Norfolk Island in the mid-19th century, and some later went back. Their language kept growing apart on each island. Travel from Australia and New Zealand is far easier to Norfolk than to Pitcairn, so Norfuk has had much more contact with English than Pitkern has. The two remain mutually intelligible but differ a good deal in vocabulary and grammar, and a proper comparison has been hard to carry out because the Pitcairn population is hard to reach.
Linguists class Norfuk as an Atlantic creole, although the island lies in the Pacific. The reason is Ned Young, a speaker of Saint Kitts Creole, who shaped the speech of the first children born on Pitcairn. English left more mark than Tahitian, whose words survive mostly for taboo subjects and for things judged undesirable. Old British seafaring words and the King James Bible also show through.
Who wrote the first Norfuk dictionary
Norfuk was mainly spoken, and it had no standard spelling in the 1970s, when islanders and Australian specialists saw it declining. The Society of the Descendants of Pitcairn Islanders, founded in 1977, pressed for it to be taught in schools, and Faye Bataille taught some of the first classes in the 1980s. Beryl Nobbs-Palmer compiled the first dictionary in 1986.
The spelling most used now comes from Speak Norfuk Today, published in 1988 by Alice Buffett with the linguist Donald Laycock of the Australian National University. The Norfolk Island government endorsed it.
What Norfuk does for new words
Fish and plants on the island have names of their own, some taken from the man who caught a fish or received it in the share-out: the Sandford is named after Sandford Warren. The sacred kingfisher is the Nuffka, from the Pitcairn word for a Norfolker. For technology the language borrows and reshapes, as with kompyuuta, and some islanders would rather a committee coined new words. Signs and tourist walks now carry Norfuk names, among them A Trip Ina Stik. In 2018 a team led by Eve Semple won an Australian Research Council grant for its revival.
Common questions
Questions about Norfuk
Can Norfuk and Pitkern speakers understand each other?
Yes. The two are mutually intelligible, although they differ significantly in vocabulary and grammar after more than a century apart, and Norfuk has taken in more English.
Since when has Norfuk been official on Norfolk Island?
Since 2004, under the Norfolk Island Language (Norf'k) Act passed by the island's legislative assembly. It is co-official with English.
Why is a Pacific language called an Atlantic creole?
Because of Ned Young, a speaker of Saint Kitts Creole among the Pitcairn settlers, who taught the first generation of children born on the island how to speak.