World Language Map

Where is Tahitian spoken?

Tahitian (reo tahiti) is an Austronesian language, spoken in French Polynesia. 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 Tahitian is spoken

Tahitian is spoken in one country: French Polynesia. 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
French Polynesia31%94,097

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.

Tahitian 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 Tahitian?

Wikidata gives about 68,000 speakers (Ethnologue, 2007). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Not endangered. Glottolog lists it as not endangered: it is still being passed on to children.

Where Tahitian sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Tahitian 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. Nuclear Polynesian
  9. Northern Outlier Polynesian-East Polynesian
  10. Solomons Northern Outlier Polynesian-East Polynesian
  11. Central Northern Outlier Polynesian-East Polynesian
  12. East Polynesian
  13. East Polynesian Proximal
  14. Southern East Polynesian Proximal
  15. Tahitian-Austral
  16. Tahitian

Related languages

Other languages in the Tahitian-Austral group:

More about Tahitian

Codes: ISO 639-3 tah, Glottolog tahi1242. Glottolog macroarea: Papunesia.

Questions about Tahitian

Where is Tahitian spoken?

Tahitian is spoken in French Polynesia. Unicode CLDR puts it at 31% of the population of French Polynesia, which is about 94,097 people. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Tahitian?

Wikidata gives about 68,000 speakers (Ethnologue, 2007). 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 Tahitian in?

Glottolog places Tahitian in the Austronesian family, in the branch Malayo-Polynesian, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, Oceanic, Central Pacific linkage, Tokalau Fijian, Polynesian, Nuclear Polynesian, Northern Outlier Polynesian-East Polynesian, Solomons Northern Outlier Polynesian-East Polynesian, Central Northern Outlier Polynesian-East Polynesian, East Polynesian, East Polynesian Proximal, Southern East Polynesian Proximal and Tahitian-Austral.

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