The Mariana Islands ( / ˌ m ær i ˈ ɑː n ə / MARR -ee- AH -nə ; Chamorro : Manislan Mariånas ), also simply the Marianas , are a crescent-shaped archipelago comprising the summits of fifteen longitudinally oriented, mostly dormant volcanic mountains in the northwestern Pacific Ocean , between the 12th and 21st parallels north and along the 145th meridian east . They lie south-southeast of Japan, west-southwest of Hawaii , north of New Guinea , and east of the Philippines , demarcating the Philippine Sea 's eastern limit. They are found in the northern part of the western Oceanic sub-region of Micronesia , and are politically divided into two jurisdictions of the United States: the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and, at the southern end of the chain, the territory of Guam . The islands were named after the influential Spanish queen Mariana of Austria following their colonization in the 17th century.
128-482: Micronesia ( UK : / ˌ m aɪ k r ə ˈ n iː z i ə / , US : /- ˈ n iː ʒ ə / ) is a subregion of Oceania , consisting of approximately 2,000 small islands in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean . It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: Maritime Southeast Asia to the west, Polynesia to the east, and Melanesia to the south—as well as with
256-606: A U.S. territory following its exit from the TTPI pursuant to Security Council Resolution 683 . Although now both under U.S. control, the Northern Mariana Islands are separate from Guam . Efforts at reunification have failed in part due to residual post-war tensions resulting from the very different histories of Guam (occupied by Japan for only 31 months, in wartime) and the Northern Mariana Islands (more peacefully occupied by Japan, for about 30 years). Tourism in
384-576: A West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the northern Netherlands. The resident population at this time was generally speaking Common Brittonic —the insular variety of Continental Celtic , which was influenced by the Roman occupation. This group of languages ( Welsh , Cornish , Cumbric ) cohabited alongside English into
512-655: A geologic structure known as the Izu–Bonin–Mariana Arc system and range in age from 5 million years old in the north to 30 million years old in the south (Guam). The islands are formed as the highly dense and very old western edge of the Pacific Plate plunges downward to form the floor of the Mariana Trench and carries trapped water under the Mariana plate as it does so. This water is super-heated as
640-486: A geologic structure known as the Izu–Bonin–Mariana Arc system, and range in age from 5 million years old in the north to 30 million years old in the south (Guam). The island chain arose as a result of the western edge of the Pacific Plate moving westward and plunging downward below the Mariana plate , a region which is the most volcanically active convergent plate boundary on Earth. This subduction region, just east of
768-627: A Spanish expedition under Ferdinand Magellan reached the Marianas. This contact is recorded in Antonio Pigafetta 's chronicle of Magellan's voyage, in which he recounts that the Chamorro people had no apparent knowledge of people outside of their island group. A Portuguese account of the same voyage suggests that the Chamorro people who greeted the travellers did so "without any shyness as if they were good acquaintances". Further contact
896-559: A century as Received Pronunciation (RP). However, due to language evolution and changing social trends, some linguists argue that RP is losing prestige or has been replaced by another accent, one that the linguist Geoff Lindsey for instance calls Standard Southern British English. Others suggest that more regionally-oriented standard accents are emerging in England. Even in Scotland and Northern Ireland, RP exerts little influence in
1024-481: A chain of sixteen atolls and coral islands, arranged in an approximate north-to-south line. In a geographical sense, the equator serves as the dividing line between the northern Gilbert Islands and the southern Gilbert Islands. The Republic of Kiribati contains all of the Gilberts, including the island of Tarawa , the site of the country's capital. The Mariana Islands are an arc-shaped archipelago made up by
1152-451: A considerable civilization. On the island of Tinian are some remains attributed to them, consisting of two rows of massive square stone columns , about 5 feet 4 inches (1.63 m) broad and 14 feet (4.3 m) high, with heavy, round capitals called latte stones . According to early Spanish accounts cinerary urns were found embedded in the capitals. When Spanish settlement started on 14 June 1668, they were subordinate to
1280-744: A few of the islands. The island chain saw significant fighting during World War II. Guam , a possession of the United States since 1898, was captured by Japan in an attack from the Northern Mariana Islands that began on the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (December 8, 1941, the same time as the Pearl Harbor attack across the International Date Line). In 1944, the United States captured
1408-508: A greater movement, normally [əʊ], [əʉ] or [əɨ]. Dropping a morphological grammatical number , in collective nouns , is stronger in British English than North American English. This is to treat them as plural when once grammatically singular, a perceived natural number prevails, especially when applying to institutional nouns and groups of people. The noun 'police', for example, undergoes this treatment: Police are investigating
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#17327662183331536-406: A lesser class or social status and often discounted or considered of a low intelligence. Another contribution to the standardisation of British English was the introduction of the printing press to England in the mid-15th century. In doing so, William Caxton enabled a common language and spelling to be dispersed among the entirety of England at a much faster rate. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of
1664-786: A mandate to Japan and were named the South Seas Mandate . During World War II , Nauru and Ocean Island were occupied by Japanese troops, with also an occupation of some of the Gilbert Islands and were bypassed by the Allied advance across the Pacific. Following Japan's defeat in World War II its mandate became a United Nations Trusteeship administered by the United States as the Trust Territory of
1792-406: A northern group of ten volcanic main islands, all are currently uninhabited; and a southern group of five coralline limestone islands (Rota, Guam, Aguijan , Tinian and Saipan ), all inhabited except Aguijan. In the northern volcanic group a maximum elevation of about 2,700 feet (820 m) is reached; there are craters showing signs of activity, and earthquakes are not uncommon. Coral reefs fringe
1920-659: A process called T-glottalisation . National media, being based in London, have seen the glottal stop spreading more widely than it once was in word endings, not being heard as "no [ʔ] " and bottle of water being heard as "bo [ʔ] le of wa [ʔ] er". It is still stigmatised when used at the beginning and central positions, such as later , while often has all but regained /t/ . Other consonants subject to this usage in Cockney English are p , as in pa [ʔ] er and k as in ba [ʔ] er. In most areas of England and Wales, outside
2048-520: A regional accent or dialect. However, about 2% of Britons speak with an accent called Received Pronunciation (also called "the King's English", "Oxford English" and " BBC English" ), that is essentially region-less. It derives from a mixture of the Midlands and Southern dialects spoken in London in the early modern period. It is frequently used as a model for teaching English to foreign learners. In
2176-521: A round-trip range of American B-29 bombers . In response, Japanese forces attacked the bases on Saipan and Tinian from November 1944 to February 1945. At the same time and afterwards, the United States Army Air Forces based on these islands conducted an intense strategic bombing campaign against the Japanese cities of military and industrial importance, including Tokyo , Nagoya , Osaka , Kobe , and others. Both US bombers
2304-448: A skiff which was fastened to the poop of the captain's ship. At which he, being very angry, went ashore with forty armed men. And burning some forty or fifty houses with several boats and killing seven men of the said island, they recovered their skiff. Pigafetta also described the boats the inhabitants used, including the sail shaped like a "lateen sail" (actually the crab claw sail ), hence the name Islas de las Velas Latinas (Islands of
2432-461: A stopover for Spanish galleons en route from Acapulco , Mexico to Manila , Philippines in a convoy known as the Galeon de Manila . Following the 1872 Cavite mutiny , several Filipinos were exiled to Guam, including the father of Pedro Paterno , Maximo Paterno, Dr. Antonio M. Regidor y Jurado and Jose Maria Basa. The islands were a popular port of call for British and American whaling ships in
2560-643: A subset of the sea-migrating Austronesian people , who may also include the Polynesian people and the hypothetical Australo-Melanesian or " Melanesian people". Human settlement of Micronesia began several millennia ago. Based on the current scientific consensus, the Austronesian peoples originated from a prehistoric seaborne migration , known as the Austronesian expansion , from pre- Han Formosa , at around 3000 to 1500 BCE. Austronesians reached
2688-519: A subspecies of the Pelew flying fox or the Mariana fruit bat , is also endemic to Yap. The region has a tropical marine climate moderated by seasonal northeast trade winds . There is little seasonal temperature variation. The dry season runs from December or January to June and the rainy season from July to November or December. Because of the location of some islands, the rainy season can sometimes include typhoons . The Northern Mariana Islands were
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#17327662183332816-526: A time. However, they tend to stay mainly at ports of entry and are too few in number to be counted as a major source of income. Copra production used to be a more significant source of income, however, world prices have dropped in part to large palm plantations that are now planted in places like Borneo . The people today form many ethnicities, but all are descended from and belong to the Micronesian culture. Because of this mixture of descent, many of
2944-528: A total land area of 2,700 km (1,000 sq mi), the largest of which is Guam , which covers 582 km (225 sq mi). The total ocean area within the perimeter of the islands is 7,400,000 km (2,900,000 sq mi). There are four main island groups in Micronesia: This does not include the separate island nation of Nauru , along with other distinctly separate islands and smaller island groups. The Caroline Islands are
3072-549: A tradition of raised buildings with capstones. The word haligi ("pillar") is also used in various languages throughout the Philippines; while the Chamorro word guma ("house") closely resembles the Sumba word uma . The first Europeans to see the island group were a Spanish expedition, who on March 6, 1521, observed a string of islands and sailed between two of them during a Spanish expedition of world circumnavigation under
3200-531: A widely scattered archipelago consisting of about 500 small coral islands , north of New Guinea and east of the Philippines . The Carolines consist of two nations: the Federated States of Micronesia , consisting of approximately 600 islands on the eastern side of the chain with Kosrae being the most eastern; and Palau consisting of 250 islands on the western side. The Gilbert Islands are
3328-725: Is also due to London-centric influences. Examples of R-dropping are car and sugar , where the R is not pronounced. British dialects differ on the extent of diphthongisation of long vowels, with southern varieties extensively turning them into diphthongs, and with northern dialects normally preserving many of them. As a comparison, North American varieties could be said to be in-between. Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are usually preserved, and in several areas also /oː/ and /eː/, as in go and say (unlike other varieties of English, that change them to [oʊ] and [eɪ] respectively). Some areas go as far as not diphthongising medieval /iː/ and /uː/, that give rise to modern /aɪ/ and /aʊ/; that is, for example, in
3456-569: Is an atoll in the Marshall Islands. There are 23 islands in the Bikini Atoll. The islands of Bokonijien, Aerokojlol and part of Nam were destroyed during nuclear tests that occurred there. The islands are composed of low coral limestone and sand. The average elevation is only about 2.1 metres (7 ft) above low tide level. Nauru is an oval-shaped island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, 42 km (26 mi) south of
3584-499: Is based on British English, but has more influence from American English , often grouped together due to their close proximity. British English, for example, is the closest English to Indian English, but Indian English has extra vocabulary and some English words are assigned different meanings. Mariana Islands The indigenous inhabitants are the Chamorro people . Archaeologists in 2013 reported findings which indicated that
3712-805: Is distributed among six sovereign nations. Some of the Caroline Islands are part of the Republic of Palau and some are part of the Federated States of Micronesia (often shortened to "FSM" or "Micronesia"—not to be confused with the identical name for the overall region). The Gilbert Islands (along with the Phoenix Islands and the Line Islands in Polynesia) comprise the Republic of Kiribati . The Mariana Islands are affiliated with
3840-795: Is included in style guides issued by various publishers including The Times newspaper, the Oxford University Press and the Cambridge University Press . The Oxford University Press guidelines were originally drafted as a single broadsheet page by Horace Henry Hart, and were at the time (1893) the first guide of their type in English; they were gradually expanded and eventually published, first as Hart's Rules , and in 2002 as part of The Oxford Manual of Style . Comparable in authority and stature to The Chicago Manual of Style for published American English ,
3968-430: Is not ethnoculturally part of Micronesia, due to its historical lack of human inhabitation. Micronesians may have possibly visited Wake Island in prehistoric times to harvest fish, but there is nothing to suggest any kind of settlement. The majority of the islands in the area are part of a coral atoll . Coral atolls begin as coral reefs that grow on the slopes of a central volcano . When the volcano sinks back down into
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4096-535: Is under the immediate administration of the United States Air Force . Notwithstanding the fact that the notion of "Micronesia" has been quite well established since 1832 and has been used ever since, by most popular works, this set does not correspond to any geomorphological, archaeological, linguistic, ethnic or cultural unity, but on the contrary represents a disparate ensemble, with no real deep unity. In fact, "Micronesian people" does not exist as
4224-409: Is unique in the pre-contact Pacific Islands . The reasons for these changes is still unclear, but it is believed that it may have resulted from a third wave of migrants from Island Southeast Asia . Comparisons with other architectural traditions makes it likely that this third migration wave were again from the Philippines, or from eastern Indonesia (either Sulawesi or Sumba ), all of which have
4352-547: The Chambers Dictionary , and the Collins Dictionary record actual usage rather than attempting to prescribe it. In addition, vocabulary and usage change with time; words are freely borrowed from other languages and other varieties of English, and neologisms are frequent. For historical reasons dating back to the rise of London in the ninth century, the form of language spoken in London and
4480-583: The Enola Gay and the Bockscar (which dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki , respectively) flew their missions from Tinian's North Field . According to Werner Gruhl: "Mariana Island historians estimate that 10 percent of Guam's approximately 20,000 population were killed by violence, most by the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy ." The direct result of World War II on
4608-615: The Caroline Islands at around the first millennium CE. This brought new pottery styles, languages, genes, and the hybrid Polynesian breadfruit . The period 900 to 1700 CE of the Marianas, immediately before and during the Spanish colonization, is known as the Latte period . It is characterized by rapid cultural change, most notably by the massive megalithic latte stones (also spelled latde or latti ). These were composed of
4736-640: The Carolines to the south. The Chamorro language is included in the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian family. Because Guam was colonized by Spain for over 300 years, many words derive from the Spanish language . The traditional Chamorro number system was replaced by Spanish numbers. The Chuukese people are an ethnic group in Oceania . They constitute 48% of the population of
4864-537: The Carolinian people may have originally immigrated from the Asian mainland and Indonesia to Micronesia around 2,000 years ago. Their primary language is Carolinian , called Refaluwasch by native speakers, which has a total of about 5,700 speakers. The Carolinians have a matriarchal society in which respect is a very important factor in their daily lives, especially toward the matriarchs . Most Carolinians are of
4992-658: The East Midlands became standard English within the Court, and ultimately became the basis for generally accepted use in the law, government, literature and education in Britain. The standardisation of British English is thought to be from both dialect levelling and a thought of social superiority. Speaking in the Standard dialect created class distinctions; those who did not speak the standard English would be considered of
5120-489: The Equator , listed as the world's smallest republic , covering just 21 km (8 sq mi). With 12,511 residents, it is the third least-populated country , after Vatican City and Tuvalu . The island is surrounded by a coral reef, which is exposed at low tide and dotted with pinnacles. The presence of the reef has prevented the establishment of a seaport , although channels in the reef allow small boats access to
5248-534: The Federated States of Micronesia . Their language is Chuukese . The home atoll of Chuuk is also known by the former name Truk. The Nauruan people are an ethnicity inhabiting the Pacific island of Nauru . They are most likely a blend of other Pacific peoples . British English British English (abbreviations: BrE , en-GB , and BE ) is the set of varieties of the English language native to
Micronesia - Misplaced Pages Continue
5376-545: The German-Spanish Treaty of February 12, 1899 to sell the Northern Marianas and its other remaining islands to Germany for 837,500 German gold marks (about US$ 4,100,000 at the time ). The Northern Marianas and other island groups were incorporated by Germany as a small part of the larger German Protectorate of New Guinea . The total population in the Northern Marianas portion of these islands
5504-509: The Lateen Sails ), the name used as Magellan claimed them for the Spanish crown. San Lazarus archipelago, Jardines ('gardens') and Prazeres are among the names applied to them by later navigators. In 1667, Spain formally claimed them, established a regular colony there and in 1668 gave the islands the official title of Las Marianas , in honor of Spanish Queen Mariana of Austria , widow of King Philip IV of Spain and Queen Regent of
5632-574: The Northern Marianas is split mainly between Filipino , Japanese, American, Korean , Taiwanese and Chinese tourists. There are several large tour operators in Saipan that cater to Asian tourists coming into the island. By far, the majority of tourism in the Northern Marianas is in Guam. Several flights a day land in Guam, mostly in the early hours between 1:00 AM and 3:30 AM. With the close of
5760-559: The Northern Marianas since this time. Following the Philippine–American War , Apolinario Mabini and other Filipino leaders were exiled to Guam in 1901. Weakened from its defeat in the Spanish–American War, Spain could no longer effectively control and protect the nearly 6,000 islands it retained throughout Micronesia , including the Northern Marianas, Carolines and Pelew Islands . Therefore, Spain entered into
5888-541: The Ratak Chain and the Ralik Chain (meaning "sunrise" and "sunset" chains). All the islands in the chain are part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands , a presidential republic in free association with the United States. Having few natural resources, the islands' wealth is based on a service economy , as well as some fishing and agriculture . Of the 29 atolls, 24 of them are inhabited. Bikini Atoll
6016-479: The Roman Catholic faith. The immigration of Carolinians to Saipan began in the early 19th century, after the Spanish reduced the local population of Chamorro natives to just 3,700. They began to immigrate mostly sailing from small canoes from other islands, which a typhoon previously devastated. The Carolinians have a much darker complexion than the native Chamorros . The Chamorro people are
6144-493: The Royal Spanish Academy with Spanish. Standard British English differs notably in certain vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation features from standard American English and certain other standard English varieties around the world. British and American spelling also differ in minor ways. The accent, or pronunciation system, of standard British English, based in southeastern England, has been known for over
6272-490: The Scots language or Scottish Gaelic ). Each group includes a range of dialects, some markedly different from others. The various British dialects also differ in the words that they have borrowed from other languages. Around the middle of the 15th century, there were points where within the 5 major dialects there were almost 500 ways to spell the word though . Following its last major survey of English Dialects (1949–1950),
6400-601: The Spanish Empire ruling during the minority of her son King Charles II . They then had a population of more than 50,000 inhabitants. With the arrival of passengers and settlers aboard the Manila Galleons from the Americas, new diseases were introduced in the islands, which caused many deaths in the native Chamorro population. The native population, who referred to themselves as Taotao Tano (people of
6528-629: The Spanish–American War . Spain then sold the remaining northerly islands to Germany in 1899. Germany lost all of her colonies at the end of World War I and the Northern Mariana Islands became a League of Nations Mandate, with Japan as the mandatory. After World War II , the islands were transferred into the United Nations Trust Territory System, with the United States as Trustee. In 1976,
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#17327662183336656-654: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England , or, more broadly, to the collective dialects of English throughout the British Isles taken as a single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English , Welsh English , and Northern Irish English . Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English acknowledges that British English shares "all
6784-417: The University of Leeds has started work on a new project. In May 2007 the Arts and Humanities Research Council awarded a grant to Leeds to study British regional dialects. The team are sifting through a large collection of examples of regional slang words and phrases turned up by the "Voices project" run by the BBC , in which they invited the public to send in examples of English still spoken throughout
6912-502: The West Country and other near-by counties of the UK, the consonant R is not pronounced if not followed by a vowel, lengthening the preceding vowel instead. This phenomenon is known as non-rhoticity . In these same areas, a tendency exists to insert an R between a word ending in a vowel and a next word beginning with a vowel. This is called the intrusive R . It could be understood as a merger, in that words that once ended in an R and words that did not are no longer treated differently. This
7040-422: The haligi pillars capped with another stone called tasa (which prevented rodents from climbing the posts). These served as supports for the rest of the structure which was made of wood. Remains of structures made with similar wooden posts have also been found. Human graves have also been found in front of latte structures, The Latte period was also characterized by the introduction of rice agriculture, which
7168-423: The indigenous peoples of the Mariana Islands , which are politically divided between the United States territory of Guam and the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Micronesia. The Chamorro are commonly believed to have come from Southeast Asia at around 2000 BC . They are most closely related to other Austronesian natives to the west in the Philippines and Taiwan , as well as
7296-433: The 19th century. The first such visit on record was that of the Resource to Guam in October 1799. The last known visit was made by the American whaler Charles W. Morgan in February 1904. The Marianas remained a Spanish colony under the general government of the Philippines until 1898, when, as a result of its loss in the Spanish–American War , Spain ceded Guam to the United States. Guam has been separate from
7424-422: The 21st century. RP, while long established as the standard English accent around the globe due to the spread of the British Empire , is distinct from the standard English pronunciation in some parts of the world; most prominently, RP notably contrasts with standard North American accents. In the 21st century, dictionaries like the Oxford English Dictionary , the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English ,
7552-651: The English Language (1755) was a large step in the English-language spelling reform , where the purification of language focused on standardising both speech and spelling. By the early 20th century, British authors had produced numerous books intended as guides to English grammar and usage, a few of which achieved sufficient acclaim to have remained in print for long periods and to have been reissued in new editions after some decades. These include, most notably of all, Fowler's Modern English Usage and The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers . Detailed guidance on many aspects of writing British English for publication
7680-434: The Germanic schwein ) is the animal in the field bred by the occupied Anglo-Saxons and pork (like the French porc ) is the animal at the table eaten by the occupying Normans. Another example is the Anglo-Saxon cu meaning cow, and the French bœuf meaning beef. Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian core of English;
7808-467: The Mariana Islands chain from Japan : the Northern Mariana Islands were desired by the U.S. as bombing bases to reach the Japanese mainland , with the invasion of Saipan being launched for that reason in June before the U.S. even moved to recapture Guam; a month later the U.S. recaptured Guam and captured Tinian . Once captured, Saipan and Tinian 's islands were used extensively by the United States military as they finally put mainland Japan within
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#17327662183337936-434: The Mariana Islands was that, after the war, the Northern Mariana Islands came under the control of the United States in the same way they had earlier come under the control of Japan after World War I. However, this time they became part of the U.S.-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 21 . The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands later became
8064-553: The Mariana Islands, and other possessions to Germany. Under German control, the islands became a protectorate and were administered from German New Guinea . Nauru had already been annexed and claimed as a colony by Germany in 1888. In the early 20th century, the islands of Micronesia were divided between three foreign powers: During World War I , Germany's Pacific island territories were seized and became League of Nations mandates in 1923. Nauru became an Australian mandate, while Germany's other territories in Micronesia were given as
8192-399: The Marianas and early Lapita settlers in the Bismarck Archipelago . This may indicate that both the Lapita culture and the Marianas were settled from direct migrations from the Philippines, or that early settlers from the Marianas voyaged further southwards into the Bismarcks and reconnected with the Lapita people. The Marianas also later established contact with and received migrations from
8320-418: The Mexican colony (soon viceroyalty) of New Spain , until 1817, when they became subordinated to the Philippines , as part of the Spanish East Indies . Research in the archipelago was carried out by Commodore Anson , who in August 1742 landed upon the island of Tinian. The Ladrones were visited by Byron in 1765, Wallis in 1767 and Crozet in 1772. The Marianas and specifically the island of Guam were
8448-545: The Northern Mariana Islands and the United States entered into a covenant of political union under which commonwealth status was granted the Northern Mariana Islands and its residents received United States citizenship. The Marshall Islands are located north of Nauru and Kiribati , east of the Federated States of Micronesia , and south of the U.S. territory of Wake Island . The islands consist of 29 low-lying atolls and 5 isolated islands, comprising 1,156 individual islands and islets . The atolls and islands form two groups:
8576-510: The Northern Marianas the only islands in Oceania where rice was grown prior to European contact. However, it was considered a high-status crop and only used in rituals. It did not become a staple until after Spanish colonization . Construction of Nan Madol , a megalithic complex made from basalt lava logs in Pohnpei, began in around 1180 CE. This was followed by the construction of the Leluh complex in Kosrae in around 1200. The earliest known contact with Europeans occurred in 1521, when
8704-621: The Oxford Manual is a fairly exhaustive standard for published British English that writers can turn to in the absence of specific guidance from their publishing house. British English is the basis of, and very similar to, Commonwealth English . Commonwealth English is English as spoken and written in the Commonwealth countries , though often with some local variation. This includes English spoken in Australia , Malta , New Zealand , Nigeria , and South Africa . It also includes South Asian English used in South Asia, in English varieties in Southeast Asia , and in parts of Africa. Canadian English
8832-429: The Pacific Islands . Nauru became independent in 1968. Today, most of Micronesia are independent states, except for the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands , Guam and Wake Island , which are U.S. territories. The Pacific Community (SPC) is a regional intergovernmental organization whose membership includes both nations and territories in the Pacific Ocean and their metropolitan powers. Nationally,
8960-611: The Philippines. Genetic analysis of pre- Latte period skeletons in Guam also show that they do not have Australo-Melanesian ("Papuan") ancestry, which rules out origins from the Bismarck Archipelago , New Guinea , and eastern Indonesia . The Lapita culture itself (the ancestral branch of the Polynesian migrations) is younger than the first settlement of the Marianas (the earliest Lapita artifacts are dated to around 1350 to 1300 BCE), indicating that they originated from separate migration voyages. Nevertheless, DNA analyses also show close genetic relationships between ancient settlers of
9088-599: The South East, there are significantly different accents; the Cockney accent spoken by some East Londoners is strikingly different from Received Pronunciation (RP). Cockney rhyming slang can be (and was initially intended to be) difficult for outsiders to understand, although the extent of its use is often somewhat exaggerated. Londoners speak with a mixture of accents, depending on ethnicity, neighbourhood, class, age, upbringing, and sundry other factors. Estuary English has been gaining prominence in recent decades: it has some features of RP and some of Cockney. Immigrants to
9216-598: The UK in recent decades have brought many more languages to the country and particularly to London. Surveys started in 1979 by the Inner London Education Authority discovered over 125 languages being spoken domestically by the families of the inner city's schoolchildren. Notably Multicultural London English , a sociolect that emerged in the late 20th century spoken mainly by young, working-class people in multicultural parts of London . Since
9344-640: The United Kingdom , as well as within the countries themselves. The major divisions are normally classified as English English (or English as spoken in England (which is itself broadly grouped into Southern English , West Country , East and West Midlands English and Northern English ), Northern Irish English (in Northern Ireland), Welsh English (not to be confused with the Welsh language ), and Scottish English (not to be confused with
9472-464: The United States, and the $ 150 million the US paid into a trust fund for reparations of residents of Bikini Atoll who had to move after nuclear testing. Few mineral deposits worth exploiting exist, except for some high-grade phosphate, especially on Nauru . Most residents of Micronesia can freely move to and work within, the United States. Relatives working in the US who send money home to relatives represent
9600-474: The United States; some of them belong to the U.S. Territory of Guam and the rest belong to the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands . The island of Nauru is its own sovereign nation. The Marshall Islands all belong to the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The sovereignty of Wake Island is contested: it is claimed both by the United States and by the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The United States has actual possession of Wake Island, which
9728-465: The West Scottish accent. Phonological features characteristic of British English revolve around the pronunciation of the letter R, as well as the dental plosive T and some diphthongs specific to this dialect. Once regarded as a Cockney feature, in a number of forms of spoken British English, /t/ has become commonly realised as a glottal stop [ʔ] when it is in the intervocalic position, in
9856-784: The Yap islands occurred in 1625. In the early 17th century Spain colonized Guam , the Northern Marianas and the Caroline Islands (what would later become the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of Palau), creating the Spanish East Indies , which was governed from the Spanish Philippines . When Russian explorer Otto von Kotzebue visited the Marshall Islands in 1817, he noted that Marshallese families practiced infanticide after
9984-410: The adjective little is predominant elsewhere. Nevertheless, there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in written English within the United Kingdom, and this could be described by the term British English . The forms of spoken English, however, vary considerably more than in most other areas of the world where English is spoken and so a uniform concept of British English is more difficult to apply to
10112-438: The ambiguities and tensions [with] the word 'British' and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity". Variations exist in formal (both written and spoken) English in the United Kingdom. For example, the adjective wee is almost exclusively used in parts of Scotland, north-east England, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and occasionally Yorkshire , whereas
10240-437: The ancestors of the Polynesian people . Further migrations by other Austronesians also followed, likely from Sulawesi , settling Palau and Yap by around 1000 BCE. The details of this colonization, however, are not very well known. In 200 BCE, a loosely connected group of Lapita colonists from Island Melanesia also migrated back northwards, settling the islands of eastern Micronesia almost simultaneously. This region became
10368-541: The area and the volcanic activity which formed the Mariana Islands. All the islands, except Farallon de Medinilla and Uracas or Farallon de Pajaros (in the northern group), are more or less densely forested , and the vegetation is dense, much resembling that of the Carolines and also of the Philippines, from where species of plants have been introduced. Owing to the moistness of the soil cryptogams are numerous, as are also most kinds of grasses. On most of
10496-488: The award of the grant in 2007, Leeds University stated: that they were "very pleased"—and indeed, "well chuffed"—at receiving their generous grant. He could, of course, have been "bostin" if he had come from the Black Country , or if he was a Scouser he would have been well "made up" over so many spondoolicks, because as a Geordie might say, £460,000 is a "canny load of chink". Most people in Britain speak with
10624-629: The birth of a third child as a form of population planning due to frequent famines . In 1819, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions —a Protestant group—brought their Puritan ways to Polynesia. Soon after, the Hawaiian Missionary Society was founded and sent missionaries into Micronesia. Conversion was not met with as much opposition, as the local religions were less developed (at least according to Western ethnographic accounts). In contrast, it took until
10752-495: The center of another wave of migrations radiating outwards, reconnecting them with other settled islands in western Micronesia. Around 800 CE, a second wave of migrants from Southeast Asia arrived in the Marianas, beginning what is now known as the Latte period . These new settlers built large structures with distinctive capped stone pillars known as haligi . They also reintroduced rice (which did not survive earlier voyages), making
10880-491: The coasts of the southern isles, which are of slight elevation. The lowest point on the Earth's crust, the Mariana Trench , is near the islands and is named after them. The majority of islands in the Marianas still retain their indigenous names ending in the letters -an; for example, Guahan (the indigenous name of Guam), Agrigan , Agrihan , Aguihan /Aguigan, Pagan , Sarigan, Saipan , and Tinian . The islands are part of
11008-536: The command of Ferdinand Magellan . Historically, the southern village of Umatac, Guam has been credited as the site of the Spanish landing. As confirmation, a scholarly study of the navigator's diary, now kept in preservation in the Philippines , revealed a drawing of the islands with a tiny island to the south of a much larger island above it. The described placement of the islands confirms that Magellan had actually sailed between Guam and Cocos Island , and not Guam and Rota , as some originally thought, especially since
11136-622: The country. The BBC Voices project also collected hundreds of news articles about how the British speak English from swearing through to items on language schools. This information will also be collated and analysed by Johnson's team both for content and for where it was reported. "Perhaps the most remarkable finding in the Voices study is that the English language is as diverse as ever, despite our increased mobility and constant exposure to other accents and dialects through TV and radio". When discussing
11264-504: The end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th centuries for missionaries to fully convert the inhabitants of Melanesia; however, a comparison of the cultural contrast must take into account the fact that Melanesia has always had deadly strains of malaria present in various degrees and distributions throughout its history (see De Rays Expedition ) and up to the present; conversely, Micronesia does not have—and never seems to have had—any malarial mosquitos nor pathogens on any of its islands in
11392-685: The ethnicities of Micronesia feel closer to some groups in Melanesia , or the Philippines . A good example of this are the Yapese people who are related to Austronesian tribes in the northern Philippines . Genetics also show a significant number of Micronesian have Japanese paternal ancestry: 9.5% of males from Micronesia as well as 0.2% in East Timor carry the Haplogroup D-M55 . There are also substantial Asian communities found across
11520-401: The first Europeans to arrive; eventually, Spain annexed and colonized the archipelago, establishing their capital on the largest island, Guam. The Marianas were the first islands Magellan encountered after traversing the Pacific from the southern tip of South America. The fruits found there saved the survivors from scurvy , which had already killed dozens of crewmembers. The Mariana Islands are
11648-813: The first islands in Oceania colonized by the Austronesian peoples . They were settled by the voyagers who sailed eastwards from the Philippines in approximately 1500 BCE. These populations gradually moved southwards until they reached the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands by 1300 BCE and reconnected with the Lapita culture of the southeast migration branch of Austronesians moving through coastal New Guinea and Island Melanesia . By 1200 BCE, they again began crossing open seas beyond inter-island visibility, reaching Vanuatu , Fiji , and New Caledonia ; before continuing eastwards to become
11776-458: The idea of two different morphemes, one that causes the double negation, and one that is used for the point or the verb. Standard English in the United Kingdom, as in other English-speaking nations, is widely enforced in schools and by social norms for formal contexts but not by any singular authority; for instance, there is no institution equivalent to the Académie française with French or
11904-479: The island chain, forms the noted Mariana Trench , the deepest part of the Earth's oceans and lowest part of the surface of the Earth's crust. In this region, according to geologic theory, water trapped in the extensive faulting of the Pacific Plate as serpentinite , is heated by the higher temperatures of depth during its subduction, the pressure from the expanding steam results in the hydrothermal activity in
12032-443: The island. A fertile coastal strip 150 to 300 m (490 to 980 ft) wide lies inland from the beach. Wake Island is a coral atoll with a coastline of 19 km (12 mi) just north of the Marshall Islands . It is an unorganized , unincorporated territory of the United States. Access to the island is restricted and all activities on the island are managed by the United States Air Force . While geographically adjacent, it
12160-536: The islands in their migration pathway. The earliest known contact of Europeans with Micronesia was in 1521, when Magellan expedition landed in the Marianas . Jules Dumont d'Urville is usually credited with coining the term "Micronesia" in 1832, but in fact, Louis Domeny de Rienzi [ fr ] used this term a year earlier. Micronesia is a region in Oceania that includes approximately 2100 islands, with
12288-405: The islands of Ladrones." Pigafetta writes, And the captain-general wished to approach the largest of these three islands to replenish his provisions. But it was not possible, for the people of those islands entered the ships and robbed us so that we could not protect ourselves from them. And when we wished to strike and take in the sails so as to land, they stole very quickly the small boat called
12416-426: The islands there is a plentiful supply of water. The fauna of the Marianas, though inferior in number and variety, is similar in character to that of the Carolines and certain species are indigenous to both island groups. The climate though damp is healthy, while the heat, being tempered by the trade winds , is milder than that of the Philippines; the variations of temperature are not great. The islands are part of
12544-483: The land) but were known to the early Spanish colonists as Chamurres or HachaMori , eventually died out as a distinct people, though their descendants intermarried. At the Spanish occupation in 1668 , the Chamorros were estimated at 50,000, but a century later only 1,800 natives remained, as the majority of the population was of mixed Spanish-Chamorro blood or mestizo . They were characteristic Micronesians , with
12672-523: The last southern Midlands accent to use the broad "a" in words like bath or grass (i.e. barth or grarss ). Conversely crass or plastic use a slender "a". A few miles northwest in Leicestershire the slender "a" becomes more widespread generally. In the town of Corby , five miles (8 km) north, one can find Corbyite which, unlike the Kettering accent, is largely influenced by
12800-518: The later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core of a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of the European languages. This Norman influence entered English largely through the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of great flexibility and with a huge vocabulary . Dialects and accents vary amongst the four countries of
12928-466: The loss of the administrative center of Manila and indefensible after the loss of two Spanish fleets in the war. The Spanish government therefore decided to sell the remaining islands to a new colonial power: the German Empire . The treaty, which was signed by Spanish Prime Minister Francisco Silvela on 12 February 1899, transferred the Caroline Islands (Kosrae in the east to Palau in the west),
13056-457: The mass internal migration to Northamptonshire in the 1940s and given its position between several major accent regions, it has become a source of various accent developments. In Northampton the older accent has been influenced by overspill Londoners. There is an accent known locally as the Kettering accent, which is a transitional accent between the East Midlands and East Anglian . It is
13184-463: The modern period, but due to their remoteness from the Germanic languages , influence on English was notably limited . However, the degree of influence remains debated, and it has recently been argued that its grammatical influence accounts for the substantial innovations noted between English and the other West Germanic languages. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting
13312-402: The northern areas of Guam do not have safe coves or harbors to anchor. Moreover, the waters of Northern Guam are often rougher and the currents are even more treacherous in comparison to the safer coves and currents seen by the southwestern side of Guam. Regardless of where they landed, the Spanish ships arrived in Guam and were unable to get fresh food as the inhabitants, Chamorros , "entered
13440-547: The northernmost Philippines , specifically the Batanes Islands , by around 2200 BCE. Austronesians were the first people to invent oceangoing sailing technologies (notably catamarans , outrigger boats , lashed-lug boat building , and the crab claw sail ), which enabled their rapid dispersal into the islands of the Indo-Pacific . From 2000 BCE they assimilated (or were assimilated by) the earlier populations on
13568-526: The past. In the Spanish–American War , Spain lost many of its remaining colonies. In the Pacific, the United States took possession of the Spanish Philippines and Guam. On 17 January 1899, the United States also took possession of unclaimed and uninhabited Wake Island. This left Spain with the remainder of the Spanish East Indies, about 6,000 tiny islands that were sparsely populated and not very productive. These islands were ungovernable after
13696-419: The people who first settled the Marianas arrived there after making what may have been at the time the longest uninterrupted ocean voyage in human history. They further reported findings which suggested that Tinian is likely to have been the first island in Oceania to have been settled by humans. Spanish expeditions, beginning with one by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in the early 16th century, were
13824-522: The period between 2000 and 1300 BC. Comparative and historical linguistics also indicate that the Chamorro language is most closely related to the Philippine subfamily of the Austronesian languages , instead of the Oceanic subfamily of the languages found in the rest of Remote Oceania. Mitochondrial DNA and whole genome sequencing of the Chamorro people strongly support an ancestry from
13952-486: The plate is carried farther downward and results in the volcanic activity which has formed the arc of Mariana Islands above this subduction region. The Mariana Islands were the first islands settled by humans in Remote Oceania . Incidentally it is also the first and the longest of the ocean-crossing voyages of the Austronesian peoples into Remote Oceania, and is separate from the later Polynesian settlement of
14080-403: The primary income is the sale of fishing rights to foreign nations that harvest tuna using huge purse seiners . A few Japanese long liners still ply the waters. The crews aboard fishing fleets contribute little to the local economy since their ships typically set sail loaded with stores and provisions that are cheaper than local goods. Additional money comes in from government grants, mostly from
14208-430: The primary source of individual income. Additional individual income comes mainly from government jobs and work within shops and restaurants. The tourist industry consists mainly of scuba divers that come to see the coral reefs, do wall dives and visit sunken ships from WWII. Major stops for scuba divers in approximate order are Palau, Chuuk, Yap and Pohnpei. Some private yacht owners visit the area for months or years at
14336-502: The region, most notably in the Northern Mariana Islands where they form the majority and smaller communities of Europeans who have migrated from the United States or are descendants of settlers during European colonial rule in Micronesia. Though they are all geographically part of the same region, they all have very different colonial histories. The US-administered areas of Micronesia have a unique experience that sets them apart from
14464-557: The rest of Remote Oceania. They were first settled around 1500 to 1400 BCE by migrants departing from the Philippines . Archeological studies of human activity on the islands have revealed pottery with red-slipped, circle-stamped and punctate-stamped designs found in the Mariana Islands dating from between 1500 and 1400 BC. These artifacts show similar aesthetics to pottery found in Northern and Central Philippines, particularly Nagsabaran ( Cagayan Valley ) pottery, which flourished during
14592-467: The rest of the Pacific. Micronesia has great economic dependency on its former or current motherlands, something only comparable to the French Pacific. Sometimes, the term American Micronesia is used to acknowledge the difference in cultural heritage. A 2011 survey found that 93.1% of Micronesian are Christians ; a survey in 2022 showed that 99% were Christian. It is thought that ancestors of
14720-537: The sea, the coral continues to grow, keeping the reef at or above water level. One exception is Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia , which still has the central volcano and coral reefs around it. The Yap Islands host a number of endemic bird species, including the Yap monarch and the Olive white-eye , in addition to four other restricted-range bird species. The endangered Yap flying-fox , though often considered
14848-493: The ships and stole whatever they could lay their hands on", including "the small boat that was fastened to the poop of the flagship", according to Spanish crewman Antonio Pigafetta. The Spanish crew, in retaliation, attacked the Chamorros and dubbed the islands Islas de los Ladrones (Islands of the Thieves). Wrote Pigafetta, "Those people are poor, but ingenious and very thievish, on account of which we called those three islands
14976-465: The southern part of a submerged mountain range that extends 1,565 miles (2,519 km) from Guam to near Japan. Geographically, the Marianas are part of a larger region called Micronesia , situated between 13° and 21°N latitude and 144° and 146°E longitude. The Mariana Islands have a total land area of 1,008 km (389 sq mi). They are composed of two administrative units: The island chain geographically consists of two subgroups,
15104-461: The spoken language. Globally, countries that are former British colonies or members of the Commonwealth tend to follow British English, as is the case for English used by European Union institutions. In China, both British English and American English are taught. The UK government actively teaches and promotes English around the world and operates in over 200 countries . English is
15232-462: The summits of fifteen volcanic mountains. The island chain arises as a result of the western edge of the Pacific Plate moving westward and plunging downward below the Mariana plate , a region that is the most volcanically active convergent plate boundary on Earth. The Marianas were politically divided in 1898, when the United States acquired title to Guam under the Treaty of Paris, 1898 , which ended
15360-603: The theft of work tools worth £500 from a van at the Sprucefield park and ride car park in Lisburn. A football team can be treated likewise: Arsenal have lost just one of 20 home Premier League matches against Manchester City. This tendency can be observed in texts produced already in the 19th century. For example, Jane Austen , a British author, writes in Chapter 4 of Pride and Prejudice , published in 1813: All
15488-403: The traditional accent of Newcastle upon Tyne , 'out' will sound as 'oot', and in parts of Scotland and North-West England, 'my' will be pronounced as 'me'. Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are diphthongised to [ɪi] and [ʊu] respectively (or, more technically, [ʏʉ], with a raised tongue), so that ee and oo in feed and food are pronounced with a movement. The diphthong [oʊ] is also pronounced with
15616-806: The varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon , eventually came to dominate. The original Old English was then influenced by two waves of invasion: the first was by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who settled in parts of Britain in the eighth and ninth centuries; the second was the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman and ultimately developed an English variety of this called Anglo-Norman . These two invasions caused English to become "mixed" to some degree (though it
15744-596: The wider community of Austronesian peoples . The region has a tropical marine climate and is part of the Oceanian realm . It includes four main archipelagos —the Caroline Islands , the Gilbert Islands , the Mariana Islands , and the Marshall Islands — as well as numerous islands that are not part of any archipelago. Political control of areas within Micronesia varies depending on the island, and
15872-568: The world are good and agreeable in your eyes. However, in Chapter 16, the grammatical number is used. The world is blinded by his fortune and consequence. Some dialects of British English use negative concords, also known as double negatives . Rather than changing a word or using a positive, words like nobody, not, nothing, and never would be used in the same sentence. While this does not occur in Standard English, it does occur in non-standard dialects. The double negation follows
16000-498: Was made during the sixteenth century, although often initial encounters were very brief. Documents relating to the 1525 voyage of Diogo da Rocha suggest that he made the first European contact with inhabitants of the Caroline Islands, possibly staying on the Ulithi atoll for four months and encountering Yap . Marshall Islanders were encountered by the expedition of Spanish navigator Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón in 1529. Other contact with
16128-422: Was never a truly mixed language in the strictest sense of the word; mixed languages arise from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication). The more idiomatic, concrete and descriptive English is, the more it is from Anglo-Saxon origins. The more intellectual and abstract English is, the more it contains Latin and French influences, e.g. swine (like
16256-538: Was only 2,646 inhabitants around this time, with the ten most northerly islands being actively volcanic and thus mostly uninhabited. Japan, allied with the Entente Powers during World War I , seized all of Germany's colonial possessions in East Asia and Micronesia, including the Northern Mariana Islands, and held them through the end of the war. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, Germany
16384-509: Was stripped of all her colonies worldwide, including the Palau, Caroline, Northern Mariana and Marshall Islands. By international agreement, these were all placed into trusteeship under the management of League of Nations which assigned them to Japan as the Class C South Seas Mandate . During this time, Japan used some of the islands for sugarcane production, modestly increasing the population of
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