World Language Map

Where is Niuean spoken?

Niuean (Vagahau Niuē) is an Austronesian language, spoken in Niue, the Cook Islands, New Zealand and Tonga. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

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Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

Where Niuean is spoken

Niuean is spoken in 4 countries: Niue, the Cook Islands, New Zealand and Tonga. The table gives the share of each country’s people who speak it, from Unicode CLDR, where CLDR has a figure.

CountryShare of populationEstimated speakers
Niue56%1,120
Cook IslandsNot givenNot given
New ZealandNot givenNot given
TongaNot givenNot given

Estimated speakers are the CLDR percentage applied to CLDR’s own population figure for the country, so they are rough. A country without a figure may still have speakers: it is listed because the language area, or Glottolog’s record, reaches it.

Niuean has no area on the map because no open area map covers it. The ringed point is the position Glottolog gives for the language.

How many people speak Niuean?

Wikidata gives about 10,000 speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 1998). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Shifting. Glottolog lists it as shifting: the youngest speakers are adults, and children are growing up speaking another language.

Where Niuean sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Niuean as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Austronesian
  2. Malayo-Polynesian
  3. Eastern Malayo-Polynesian
  4. Oceanic
  5. Central Pacific linkage
  6. Tokalau Fijian
  7. Polynesian
  8. Tongic
  9. Niuean

Related languages

Other languages in the Tongic group:

More about Niuean

Codes: ISO 639-3 niu, Glottolog niue1239. Glottolog macroarea: Papunesia.

Questions about Niuean

Where is Niuean spoken?

Niuean is spoken in Niue, the Cook Islands, New Zealand and Tonga. Unicode CLDR puts it at 56% of the population of Niue, which is about 1,120 people. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Niuean?

Wikidata gives about 10,000 speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 1998). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled.

Which language family is Niuean in?

Glottolog places Niuean in the Austronesian family, in the branch Malayo-Polynesian, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, Oceanic, Central Pacific linkage, Tokalau Fijian, Polynesian and Tongic.

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