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85-707: Tahiti ( English: / t ə ˈ h iː t i / ; Tahitian [taˈhiti] ; French pronunciation: [ta.iˈti] ) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia . It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Australia . Divided into two parts, Tahiti Nui (bigger, northwestern part) and Tahiti Iti (smaller, southeastern part),

170-475: A [k] . While standard Tahitian only has [k] as a result of dissimilation, the dialects of the Leeward Islands have many cases of [k] corresponding to standard Tahitian [t] . For example, inhabitants of Maupiti pronounce their island's name [maupiki] . Finally there is a toro ʼaʼï , a trema put on the i , but only used in ïa when used as a reflexive pronoun . It does not indicate

255-464: A straight apostrophe or a curly apostrophe preferred typographically , see below) instead of the turned curly apostrophe used in Hawaiian (locally named ʻokina ). Alphabetical word ordering in dictionaries used to ignore the existence of glottal stops. However, academics and scholars now publish text content with due use of glottal stops. Although the use of ʼeta and tārava is equal to

340-631: A Tahitian king, and the Welsh missionary, John Davies (1772–1855), to translate the Bible into Tahitian. A system of five vowels and nine consonants was adopted for the Tahitian Bible, which would become the key text by which many Polynesians would learn to read and write. John Davies's spelling book (1810) was the first book to be printed in the Tahitian language. He also published a grammar and

425-594: A ban on nudity (obliging them to wear clothes covering their whole body), banned dances and chants (described as immodest), tattoos, and costumes made of flowers. In the 1820s, the entire population of Tahiti converted to Protestantism. Duperrey , who berthed in Tahiti in May 1823, attests to the change in Tahitian society in a letter dated 15 May 1823: "The missionaries of the Royal Society of London have totally changed

510-402: A dictionary of that language. Tahitian features a very small number of phonemes : five vowels and nine consonants, not counting the lengthened vowels and diphthongs . Notably, the consonant inventory lacks any sort of phonemic dorsal consonants . There is a five-vowel inventory with vowel length: When two vowels follow each other in a V 1 V 2 sequence, they form a diphthong when V 1

595-500: A different pronunciation. Usage of this diacritic was promoted by academics but has now virtually disappeared, mostly because there is no difference in the quality of the vowel when the trema is used and when the macron is used. Tahitian syllables are entirely open , as is usual in Polynesian languages. If a content word is composed of a single syllable with a single vowel, its vowel must be long. Thus, every Tahitian content word

680-594: A missionary and teacher, and starting in 1817, the Gospels were translated into Tahitian ( Reo Maohi ) and taught in the religious schools. In 1818, the minister William Pascoe Crook founded the city of Papeʻete , which became the capital of the island. In 1819, Pōmare II, encouraged by the missionaries, introduced the first Tahitian legal code, known under the name of the Pōmare Legal Code, which consists of nineteen laws. The missionaries and Pōmare II thus imposed

765-606: A table with all phonemes in more detail. The glottal stop or ʼeta is a genuine consonant. This is typical of Polynesian languages (compare to the Hawaiian ʻokina and others). See Typography below. Tahitian makes a phonemic distinction between long and short vowels; long vowels are marked with macron or tārava . For example, pāto , meaning 'to pick, to pluck' and pato , 'to break out', are distinguished solely by their vowel length . However, macrons are seldom written among older people because Tahitian writing

850-605: A turned letter apostrophe ( U+02BB ʻ MODIFIER LETTER TURNED COMMA , called ʻokina in Hawaiian). As the ASCII apostrophe ( U+0027 ' APOSTROPHE ) is the character output when hitting the apostrophe key on a usual French AZERTY keyboard, it has become natural for writers to use the punctuation mark for glottal stops, although to avoid the complications caused by automatic substitution of basic punctuation characters for letters in digital documents, and

935-482: Is VSO (verb–subject–object), which is typical of Polynesian languages, or verb-attribute-subject for stating verbs/modality (without object). Some examples of word order are: tē PRS . CONT tāmāʼa eat nei PRS . CONT au I tē tāmāʼa nei au PRS.CONT eat PRS.CONT I "I am eating" ʼua PFV tāpū chop vau I ʼi O te the vahie wood ʼua tāpū vau ʼi te vahie Pacific Plate The Pacific plate

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1020-565: Is almost entirely oceanic crust , but it contains some continental crust in New Zealand, Baja California , and coastal California . The Pacific plate has the distinction of showing one of the largest areal sections of the oldest members of seabed geology being entrenched into eastern Asian oceanic trenches . A geologic map of the Pacific Ocean seabed shows not only the geologic sequences, and associated Ring of Fire zones on

1105-484: Is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean . At 103 million km (40 million sq mi), it is the largest tectonic plate. The plate first came into existence as a microplate 190 million years ago, at the triple junction between the Farallon , Phoenix , and Izanagi plates . The Pacific plate subsequently grew to where it underlies most of the Pacific Ocean basin. This reduced

1190-436: Is applied to verbs, regular stress assignment results in the last syllable of the root verb being stressed. This is due to the destressing of the V 1 in /V 1 ʔV 2 / . To give an example, the word oraraʼa 'life', from ora 'to live' and -raʼa , is pronounced with antepenultimate stress. Prefixes added to a root word do not carry primary stress. For example, ʼōrama 'vision', related to rama 'vision',

1275-401: Is at least two moras long. Stress is predictable in Tahitian. It always falls on one of the final three syllables of a word, and relies on the distinction between heavy and light syllables. Syllables with diphthongs or with long vowels are both considered to be heavy . Other syllables are considered to be light. Heavy syllables always bear secondary stress. In general main stress falls on

1360-410: Is more open, and as a consequence more sonorant, than V 2 . An exception to this rule is the sequence /eu/ , which never becomes the diphthong [eu̯] . Two vowels with the same sonority are generally pronounced in hiatus, as in [no.ˈe.ma] 'November', but there is some variability. The word tiuno 'June' may be pronounced [ti.ˈu.no] , with hiatus, or [ˈtiu̯.no] , with a diphthong. Next follows

1445-416: Is stressed on the second syllable, and not the first, even though it has a long vowel. This can also be seen with the verb taʼa 'to be understood'. When combined with the causative prefix faʼa- , it becomes faʼataʼa , which is stressed on the penultimate syllable. In former practice, the Tahitian glottal stop ( ʼ ) used to be seldom written, but today it is commonly spelled out, although often as

1530-578: Is the highest and largest island in French Polynesia lying close to Moʻorea island. It is located 4,400 kilometres (2,376 nautical miles) south of Hawaiʻi, 7,900 km (4,266 nmi) from Chile , 5,700 km (3,078 nmi) from Australia. The island is 45 km (28 mi) across at its widest point and covers an area of 1,045 km (403 sq mi). The highest peak is Mont Orohena (Mouʻa ʻOrohena) (2,241 m (7,352 ft)). Mount Roonui , or Mount Ronui (Mouʻa Rōnui), in

1615-1095: Is the inferred current location of the hotspot as evidenced by recent seismic activity. Maupiti, the oldest island in the chain, is a highly eroded shield volcano with at least 12 thin lava flows, which accumulated fairly rapidly between 4.79 and 4.05 Ma. Bora Bora is another highly eroded shield volcano consisting of basaltic lavas accumulated between 3.83 and 3.1 Ma. The lavas are intersected by post-shield dikes . Tahaʻa consists of shield-stage basalt with an age of 3.39 Ma, followed by additional eruptions 1.2 Ma later. Raiatea consists of shield-stage basalt followed by post-shield trachytic lava flows , all occurring from 2.75 to 2.29 Ma. Huahine consists of two coalesced basalt shield volcanoes, Huahine Nui and Huahine Iti, with several flows followed by post-shield trachyphonolitic lava domes from 3.08 to 2.06 Ma. Moʻorea consists of at least 16 flows of shield-stage basalt and post-shield lavas from 2.15 to 1.36 Ma. Tahiti consists of two basalt shield volcanoes, Tahiti Nui and Tahiti Iti, with an age range of 1.67 to 0.25 Ma. November to April

1700-486: Is the wet season, the wettest month of which is January with 340 millimetres (13 in) of rain in Papeʻete. August is the driest with 48 millimetres (1.9 in). The average temperature ranges between 21 and 31 °C (70 and 88 °F), with little seasonal variation. The lowest and highest temperatures recorded in Papeʻete are 16 and 34 °C (61 and 93 °F), respectively. About 1.4 million to 870,000 years ago,

1785-686: Is to the east of this boundary, is the plate's largest block of continental crust. Hillis and Müller are reported to consider the Bird's Head plate to be moving in unison with the Pacific plate, but Bird considers them to be unconnected. The northern side is a convergent boundary subducting under the North American plate forming the Aleutian Trench and the corresponding Aleutian Islands (see also: Aleutian Arc ). The Pacific plate

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1870-587: The ʼeta . In its morphology , Tahitian relies on the use of "helper words" (such as prepositions , articles , and particles ) to encode grammatical relationships, rather than on inflection, as would be typical of European languages. It is a very analytic language , except when it comes to the personal pronouns , which have separate forms for singular , plural and dual numbers . Like many Austronesian languages, Tahitian has separate words for inclusive and exclusive we , and distinguishes singular , dual , and plural . Typologically, Tahitian word order

1955-883: The Explorer Ridge , the Juan de Fuca Ridge and the Gorda Ridge . In the middle of the eastern side is a transform boundary with the North American plate along the San Andreas Fault , and a boundary with the Cocos plate . The south-eastern side is a divergent boundary with the Nazca plate forming the East Pacific Rise . The southern side is a divergent boundary with the Antarctic plate forming

2040-501: The French Republic . The capital of French Polynesia, Papeʻete , is located on the northwest coast of Tahiti. The only international airport in the region, Faʻaʻā International Airport , is on Tahiti near Papeʻete. Tahiti was originally settled by Polynesians between 300 and 800   AD. They represent about 70% of the island's population, with the rest made up of Europeans , Chinese and those of mixed heritage. The island

2125-523: The Marquesas Islands, which he annexed in 1842. Also in 1842, a European crisis involving Morocco escalated between France and Great Britain, souring their relations. In August 1842, Admiral Du Petit-Thouars returned and landed in Tahiti. He then made friends with Tahitian chiefs who were hostile to the Pōmare family and favourable to a French protectorate. He had them sign a request for protection in

2210-890: The Pacific–Antarctic Ridge . The western side is bounded by the Okhotsk microplate at the Kuril–Kamchatka Trench and the Japan Trench . The plate forms a convergent boundary by subducting under the Philippine Sea plate creating the Mariana Trench , has a transform boundary with the Caroline plate , and has a collision boundary with the North Bismarck plate . In the south-west,

2295-645: The Papenoʻo on the north side and the Fautaua Falls near Papeʻete . The Society archipelago is a hotspot volcanic chain consisting of ten islands and atolls. The chain is oriented along the N. 65° W. direction, parallel to the movement of the Pacific Plate . Due to the plate movement over the Society hotspot , the age of the islands decreases from 5 Ma at Maupiti to 0 Ma at Mehetia , where Mehetia

2380-531: The Spanish Crown in an expedition to Terra Australis , was perhaps the first European to see Tahiti. He sighted an inhabited island on 10 February 1606. However, it has been suggested that he actually saw the island of Rekareka to the southeast of Tahiti. Hence, although the Spanish and Portuguese made contact with nearby islands, they may not have arrived at Tahiti. The next stage of European visits to

2465-486: The 1890s and painted many Tahitian subjects. Papeari has a small Gauguin museum. In 1891 Matthew Turner , an American shipbuilder from San Francisco who had been seeking a fast passage between the city and Tahiti, built Papeete , a two-masted schooner that made the trip in seventeen days. In 1903, the Établissements Français d'Océanie (French Establishments in Oceania) were created, which collected together Tahiti,

2550-885: The Farallon plate to a few remnants along the west coast of the Americas and the Phoenix plate to a small remnant near the Drake Passage , and destroyed the Izanagi plate by subduction under Asia. The Pacific plate contains an interior hot spot forming the Hawaiian Islands . The north-eastern side is a divergent boundary with the Explorer plate , the Juan de Fuca plate and the Gorda plate forming respectively

2635-602: The Fathers successfully begged to be taken back to Lima. During his final visit in 1777 Cook first moored in Vaitepiha Bay. From there he reunited with many Tahitian clans and established British presence on the remains of the Spanish mission. On 29 September 1777 Cook sailed for Papetoʻai Bay on Moʻorea. On 26 October 1788, HMS  Bounty , under the command of Captain William Bligh , landed in Tahiti with

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2720-731: The Pacific plate has a complex but generally convergent boundary with the Indo-Australian plate , subducting under it north of New Zealand forming the Tonga Trench and the Kermadec Trench . The Alpine Fault marks a transform boundary between the two plates, and further south the Indo-Australian plate subducts under the Pacific plate forming the Puysegur Trench . The southern part of Zealandia , which

2805-409: The Tahitian arioi , Tupaia . Many of these were "non-geographic" or "ghost islands" of Polynesian mythology and all were transcribed using phonetic English spelling . In 1797, Protestant missionaries arrived in Tahiti on a British ship called Duff , captained by James Wilson . Among the missionaries was Henry Nott (1774–1844) who learned the Tahitian language and worked with Pōmare II ,

2890-552: The Tahitian population, which shrank rapidly, ravaged by diseases and other cultural factors. During the first decade of the 19th century, the Tahitian population dropped from 16,000 to 8,000–9,000; the French census in 1854 counted a population just under 6,000. On 5 March 1797, representatives of the London Missionary Society landed at Matavai Bay ( Mahina ) on board Duff , with the intention of converting

2975-466: The absence of their Queen, before then approaching her and obliging her to ratify the terms of the treaty of protectorate. The treaty had not even been ratified by France itself when Jacques-Antoine Moerenhout was named royal commissaire alongside Queen Pōmare. Within the framework of this treaty, France recognised the sovereignty of the Tahitian state. The Queen was responsible for internal affairs, while France would deal with foreign relations and assure

3060-460: The antepenultimate syllable. In all these words, the last two vowels are identical, and are separated by a glottal stop. One can posit that in such words, the last syllable is extrametrical , and does not count towards stress assignment. This extrametricality does not apply in the case of words with only two syllables, which remain stressed on the penultimate syllable. In compound words, each morpheme's stressed syllable carries secondary stress, and

3145-642: The arrival of the Europeans, the island was divided into territories, each dominated by a single clan. The most important clans were the closely related Teva i Uta (Teva of the Interior) and the Teva i Tai (Teva of the Sea) whose combined territory extended from the peninsula in the south of Tahiti Nui. Clan leadership consisted of a chief ( ariʻi rahi ), nobles ( ariʻi ), and under-chiefs ( ʻĪatoʻai ). The ariʻi were also

3230-620: The atolls of Moruroa and Fangataufa . The last test was conducted on 27 January 1996. Tahitian language As Tahitian had no written tradition before the arrival of the Western colonists, the spoken language was first transcribed by missionaries of the London Missionary Society in the early 19th century. Tahitian is the most prominent of the indigenous Polynesian languages spoken in French Polynesia ( reo māʼohi ). The latter also include: When Europeans first arrived in Tahiti at

3315-403: The capital, Papeʻete. The interior of Tahiti Nui is almost entirely uninhabited. Tahiti Iti has remained isolated, as its southeastern half ( Te Pari ) is accessible only to those travelling by boat or on foot. The rest of the island is encircled by a main road which cuts between the mountains and the sea. Tahiti's landscape features lush rainforests and many rivers and waterfalls, including

3400-575: The chief of the new colony. He threw Pritchard into prison, and later sent him back to Britain. The annexation caused the Queen to be exiled to the Leeward Islands, and after a period of troubles, a real Franco-Tahitian war began in March 1844. News of Tahiti reached Europe in early 1844. The French statesman François Guizot , supported by King Louis-Philippe of France , had denounced annexation of

3485-432: The chiefdom Pare - Arue (governed by Tu (Tu-nui-e-aʻa-i-te-Atua) and his regent Tutaha) and the chiefdom Haʻapape , governed by Amo and his wife "Oberea" ( Purea ). The first contacts were difficult, but to avert all-out war after a British show of force, Oberea laid down peace offerings leading to cordial relations. On 2 April 1768, the expedition of Louis-Antoine de Bougainville , aboard Boudeuse and Etoile on

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3570-607: The command of navigator Domingo de Bonechea . Four Tahitians, Pautu, Tipitipia, Heiao, and Tetuanui, accompanied Bonechea back to Peru in early 1773 after the first Aguila expedition. Cook returned to Tahiti between 15 August and 1 September 1773. Greeted by the chiefs, Cook anchored in Vaitepiha Bay before returning to Point Venus. Cook left Tahiti on 14 May 1774. Pautu and Tetuanui returned to Tahiti with Bonechea aboard Aguila on 14 November 1774; Tipitipia and Heiao had died. Bonechea died on 26 January 1775 in Tahiti and

3655-661: The confusion with the regular apostrophe used in multilingual texts mixing Tahitian with French (where the apostrophe marks the elision of a final schwa at end of common pronouns, prepositions or particles, and the orthographic suppression of the separating regular space before a word starting by a vowel sound, in order to indicate a single phonemic syllable partly spanning the two words), the saltillo ( U+A78C ꞌ LATIN SMALL LETTER SALTILLO ) may be used instead. Today, macronized vowels and ʼeta are also available on mobile devices, either by default or after installing an application to input vowels with macron as well as

3740-457: The crew mutinied on the initiative of Fletcher Christian . The mutineers seized the ship and set the captain and most of those members of the crew who remained loyal to him adrift in a ship's boat. A group of mutineers then went back to settle in Tahiti, after which the Bounty, under Christian, sailed to Pitcairn Island . Although various explorers had refused to get involved in tribal conflicts,

3825-672: The defence of Tahiti, as well as maintain order on the island. Once the treaty had been signed there began a struggle for influence between the English Protestants and the Catholic representatives of France. During the first years of the Protectorate, the Protestants managed to retain a considerable hold over Tahitian society, thanks to their knowledge of the country and its language. George Pritchard had been away at

3910-496: The end of the 18th century, there was no writing system and Tahitian was only a spoken language. Reports by some early European explorers including Quirós include attempts to transcribe notable Tahitian words heard during initial interactions with the indigenous people of Marquesa . Aboard the Endeavour , Lt. James Cook and the ship's master, Robert Molyneux, transcribed the names of 72 and 55 islands respectively as recited by

3995-423: The final verb ending bears main stress while the earlier ones bears secondary stress. When suffixes are added to a word, primary and secondary stresses in the root word are maintained as secondary and tertiary stresses, and a new primary stress is calculated for the word. Tertiary and secondary stress are often merged. The suffix does not always carry main stress. For example, when the nominalizing suffix -raʼa

4080-511: The first French circumnavigation, sighted Tahiti. On 5 April, they anchored off Hitiaʻa O Te Ra and were welcomed by its chief Reti. Bougainville was also visited by Tutaha. Bougainville stayed about ten days. By 12 April 1769 Captain James Cook had arrived in Tahiti's Matavai Bay, commanding HMS  Endeavour . He had been sent on a scientific mission with astronomy, botany, and artistic details. On 14 April Cook met Tutaha and Tepau and

4165-473: The island of Tahiti was formed as a volcanic shield . The first Tahitians arrived from Western Polynesia sometime before 500   BC. Linguistic, biological and archaeological evidence supports a long migration from Southeast Asia via the Fijian, Samoan and Tongan Archipelagos using outrigger canoes that were up to twenty or thirty metres long and could transport families as well as domestic animals. Before

4250-438: The island was formed from volcanic activity; it is high and mountainous with surrounding coral reefs . Its population was 189,517 in 2017, making it by far the most populous island in French Polynesia and accounting for 68.7% of its total population; the 2022 Census recorded a population of 191,779. Tahiti is the economic, cultural, and political centre of French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity and an overseas country of

4335-660: The island was visited by the United States Exploring Expedition . One of its members, Alfred Thomas Agate , produced a number of sketches of Tahitian life, some of which were later published in the United States. In 1836, the Queen's advisor Pritchard had two French Catholic priests expelled, François Caret and Honoré Laval . As a result, in 1838 France sent Admiral Abel Aubert du Petit-Thouars to obtain reparations. Once his mission had been completed, Admiral Du Petit-Thouars sailed towards

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4420-772: The island. The war ended in December 1846 in favour of the French. The Queen returned from exile in 1847 and agreed to sign a new covenant, considerably reducing her powers, while increasing those of the commissaire. Thus, the French reigned over the Kingdom of Tahiti. In 1863, they put an end to the British influence and replaced the British Protestant Missions with the Société des missions évangéliques de Paris (Society of Evangelical Missions of Paris). During

4505-487: The king of Tahiti. It was the first time that Tahiti had been united under the control of a single family. This marked the end of Tahitian feudalism and the military aristocracy, which were replaced by an absolute monarchy. At the same time, Protestantism quickly spread, thanks to the support of Pōmare II, and replaced the traditional beliefs. In 1816 the London Missionary Society sent John Williams as

4590-540: The kingdom, and when in 1880 the governor Henri Isidore Chessé, supported by the Tahitian chiefs, pushed him to abdicate in favour of France, he accepted. On 29 June 1880, he ceded Tahiti to France along with the islands that were its dependencies. He was given the titular position of Officer of the Orders of the Legion of Honour and Agricultural Merit of France . Having become a colony, Tahiti thus lost all sovereignty. Tahiti

4675-402: The lands that now constitute modern French Polynesia. In 1791, HMS  Pandora under Captain Edward Edwards called at Tahiti and took custody of fourteen of the mutineers. Four were drowned in the sinking of Pandora on her homeward voyage, three were hanged, four were acquitted, and three were pardoned. In the 1790s, whalers began landing at Tahiti during their hunting expeditions in

4760-454: The mission of carrying Tahitian breadfruit trees ( Tahitian : ʻuru ) to the Caribbean . Sir Joseph Banks , the botanist from James Cook 's first expedition, had concluded that this plant would be ideal to feed the African slaves working in the Caribbean plantations at very little cost. The crew remained in Tahiti for about five months, the time needed to transplant the seedlings of the trees. Three weeks after leaving Tahiti, on 28 April 1789,

4845-421: The morals and customs of the inhabitants. Idolatry no longer exists among them, and they generally profess the Christian religion. The women no longer come aboard the vessel, and even when we meet them on land they are extremely reserved. (...) The bloody wars that these people used to carry out and human sacrifices have no longer taken place since 1816." When, on 7 December 1821, Pōmare II died, his son Pōmare III

4930-411: The mutineers from the Bounty offered their services as mercenaries and furnished arms to the family which became the Pōmare Dynasty . The chief Tū knew how to use their presence in the harbours favoured by sailors to his advantage. As a result of his alliance with the mutineers, he succeeded in considerably increasing his supremacy over the island of Tahiti. In about 1790, the ambitious chief Tū took

5015-417: The next day he picked the site for a fortified camp at Point Venus for Charles Green's observatory. Botanist Joseph Banks and artist Sydney Parkinson , along with Cook, gathered valuable information on fauna and flora as well as on native society, language and customs, including the proper name of the island. Cook also met many island chiefs. Cook and Endeavour left Tahiti on 13 July 1769. Cook estimated

5100-496: The ocean's perimeters, but the various ages of the seafloor in a stairstep fashion, youngest to oldest, the oldest being consumed into the Asian oceanic trenches. The oldest part disappearing by way of the plate tectonics cycle is early- Cretaceous (145 to 137 million years ago). The Pacific plate originated at the triple junction of the three main oceanic plates of Panthalassa , the Farallon , Phoenix , and Izanagi plates , around 190 million years ago. The plate formed because

5185-453: The other Society Islands , the Austral Islands , the Marquesas Islands and the Tuamotu Archipelago . During the First World War , the Papeʻete region of the island was attacked by two German warships . A French gunboat as well as a captured German freighter were sunk in the harbour and the two German armoured cruisers bombarded the colony. Between 1966 and 1996 the French Government conducted 193 nuclear bomb tests above and below

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5270-443: The pagan native populations to Christianity. The arrival of these missionaries marked a new turning point for the island of Tahiti, having a lasting impact on the local culture. The first years proved hard work for the missionaries, despite their association with the Pōmare, the importance of whom they were aware of thanks to the reports of earlier sailors. In 1803, upon the death of Pōmare I , his son Vairaʻatoa succeeded him and took

5355-479: The penultimate syllable in a word. However, if there is a long vowel or diphthong in the last syllable, that syllable receives main stress. If there is a long vowel in the antepenultimate syllable, and the penultimate syllable is light, the antepenultimate syllable receives main stress. There is another type of words whose stress pattern requires another rule to explain. These include mutaʼa 'first', tiaʼa 'shoe', ariʼi 'king', all of which are stressed on

5440-435: The point when Protestantism truly took off on the island. In about 1810, Pōmare II married Teremoʻemoʻe daughter of the chief of Raiatea , to ally himself with the chiefdoms of the Leeward Islands . On 12 November 1815, thanks to these alliances, Pōmare II won a decisive battle at Feʻi Pī (Punaʻauia), notably against Opuhara, the chief of the powerful clan of Teva. This victory allowed Pōmare II to be styled Ariʻi Rahi , or

5525-418: The population to be 200,000 including all the nearby islands in the chain. This estimate was reduced to 35,000 by Cook's contemporary, anthropologist and Tahiti expert Douglas L. Oliver. The Viceroy of Peru , Manuel de Amat y Juniet , under order of the Spanish Crown, organized an expedition to colonize the island in 1772. He would ultimately send three expeditions aboard the ship Aguila , the first two under

5610-400: The powers of the traditional hereditary chiefs. In the context of the republican assimilation, these councils tried their best to protect the traditional way of life of the local people, which was threatened by European influence. In 1877, Queen Pōmare died after ruling for fifty years. Her son, Pōmare V, then succeeded her on the throne. The new king seemed little concerned with the affairs of

5695-533: The protection of England. In November 1835 Charles Darwin visited Tahiti aboard HMS Beagle on her circumnavigation, captained by Robert FitzRoy . He was impressed by what he perceived to be the positive influence the missionaries had had on the sobriety and moral character of the population. Darwin praised the scenery, but was not flattering towards Tahiti's Queen Pōmare IV. Captain Fitzroy negotiated payment of compensation for an attack on an English ship by Tahitians, which had taken place in 1833. In Sept. 1839,

5780-431: The region came during the period of intense Anglo-French rivalry that filled the twelve years between the Seven Years' War and the American Revolutionary War . The first of these visits, and perhaps the first European visit to Tahiti, was under the command of Captain Samuel Wallis . While circumnavigating the globe in HMS  Dolphin , they sighted the island on 18 June 1767 and then harbored in Matavai Bay between

5865-662: The religious leaders, revered for the mana (spiritual power) they inherited as descendants of the gods. As symbols of their power, they wore belts of red feathers. Nonetheless, to exercise their political power, councils or general assemblies composed of the ariʻi and the ʻĪatoʻai had to be called, especially in case of war. The chief's spiritual power was also limited; each clan's practice was organized around their marae (stone temple) and its priests. The first European to arrive at Tahiti may have been Spanish explorer Juan Fernández in his expedition of 1576–1577. Alternatively, Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós , serving

5950-431: The same period about a thousand Chinese, mainly Cantonese , were recruited at the request of a plantation owner in Tahiti, William Stewart, to work on the great cotton plantation at Atimaono. When the enterprise resulted in bankruptcy in 1873, some Chinese workers returned to their country, but a large number stayed in Tahiti and mixed with the population. In 1866 the district councils were formed, elected, which were given

6035-442: The situation to change the way in which powers were arranged, and to make the Tahitian monarchy closer to the English model of a constitutional monarchy. They therefore created the Tahitian Legislative Assembly, which first sat on 23 February 1824. In 1827, the young Pōmare III suddenly died, and it was his half-sister, ʻAimata, aged thirteen, who took the title of Pōmare IV . The Birmingham -born missionary George Pritchard , who

6120-419: The southeast rises to 1,332 m (4,370 ft). The island consists of two roughly round portions centered on volcanic mountains and connected by a short isthmus of Taravao. The northwestern portion is known as Tahiti Nui ("big Tahiti"), while the much smaller southeastern portion is known as Tahiti Iti ("small Tahiti") or Taiʻarapū . Tahiti Nui is heavily populated along the coast, especially around

6205-495: The southern hemisphere. The arrival of these whalers, who were subsequently joined by merchants coming from the penal colonies in Australia, marked the first major overturning of traditional Tahitian society. The crews introduced alcohol , arms and infectious diseases to the island, and encouraged prostitution , which brought with it venereal disease . These commercial interactions with westerners had catastrophic consequences for

6290-487: The stressed syllable of the last morpheme carries primary stress. Thus, for example, manureva 'airplane', from manu 'bird' and reva 'leave', is pronounced [ˌmanuˈreva] . Tahitian has reduplication as well. The endings of some verbs can be duplicated in order to add a repetitive sense to the verb. For example, reva becomes revareva , haʼaviti 'do quickly' becomes haʼavitiviti , and pīhae 'to tear' becomes pīhaehae . In reduplicated verbs,

6375-487: The time. He returned however to work towards indoctrinating the locals against the Roman Catholic French. In 1843, the Queen's Protestant advisor, Pritchard, persuaded her to display the Tahitian flag in place of the flag of the Protectorate. By way of reprisal, Admiral Dupetit-Thouars announced the annexation of the Kingdom of Pōmare on 6 November 1843 and set up the governor Armand Joseph Bruat there as

6460-407: The title of Pōmare II. He allied himself more and more with the missionaries, and from 1803 they taught him reading and the Gospels. Furthermore, the missionaries encouraged his wish to conquer his opponents, so that they would only have to deal with a single political contact, enabling them to develop Christianity in a unified country. The conversion of Pōmare II to Protestantism in 1812 marks moreover

6545-560: The title of king and gave himself the name Pōmare . Captain Bligh explains that this name was a homage to his eldest daughter Teriʻinavahoroa, who had died of tuberculosis , "an illness that made her cough ( mare ) a lot, especially at night ( pō )". Thus he became Pōmare I , founding the Pōmare Dynasty and his lineage would be the first to unify Tahiti from 1788 to 1791. He and his descendants founded and expanded Tahitian influence to all of

6630-411: The triple junction had converted to an unstable form surrounded on all sides by transform faults , due to the development of a kink in one of the plate boundaries. The "Pacific Triangle", the oldest part of the Pacific plate, created during the initial stages of plate formation, is located just east of the Mariana Trench . The growth of the Pacific plate reduced the Farallon plate to a few remnants along

6715-575: The usage of such symbols in other Polynesian languages, it is promoted by the Académie tahitienne and adopted by the territorial government. There are at least a dozen other ways of applying accents. Some methods are historical and no longer used. At this moment, the Académie tahitienne seems to have not made a final decision yet whether the ʼeta should appear as a normal letter apostrophe ( U+02BC ʼ MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE ) or

6800-474: Was buried near the mission he had established at Tautira Bay . Lt Tomas Gayangos took over command and set sail for Peru on 27 January, leaving the Fathers Geronimo Clota and Narciso Gonzalez and the sailors Maximo Rodriguez and Francisco Perez in charge of the mission. On the third Aguila expedition, under Don Cayetano de Langara, the mission on Tahiti was abandoned on 12 November 1775, when

6885-545: Was nevertheless a special colony, since all the subjects of the Kingdom of Pōmare would be given French citizenship. On 14 July 1881, among cries of "Vive la République!" the crowds celebrated the fact that Polynesia now belonged to France; this was the first celebration of the Tiurai (national and popular festival). In 1890, Papeʻete became a commune of the Republic of France. The French painter Paul Gauguin lived on Tahiti in

6970-407: Was not taught at school until 1981. In rapid speech, the common article te is pronounced with a schwa, as [tə] . Also in rapid speech, /tVt/ sequences are dissimilated to [kVt] , so te tāne 'man, male' is pronounced [kə taːne] , te peretiteni 'president' becomes [tə perekiteni] . Intervening syllables prevent this dissimilation, so te mata 'eye' is never pronounced with

7055-475: Was only eighteen months old. His uncle and the religious people therefore supported the regency, until 2 May 1824, the date on which the missionaries conducted his coronation, a ceremony unprecedented in Tahiti. Taking advantage of the weakness of the Pōmare, local chiefs won back some of their power and took the hereditary title of Tavana (from the English word "governor"). The missionaries also took advantage of

7140-566: Was part of the Kingdom of Tahiti until its annexation by France in 1880, when it was proclaimed a colony of France , and the inhabitants became French citizens . French is the sole official language, although the Tahitian language ( Reo Tahiti ) is also widely spoken. Tahiti was called Otaheite in earlier European documents: this is a rendering of Tah. ʻo Tahiti , which is typically pronounced [ʔotaˈhɛiti] . Tahiti

7225-502: Was the acting British consul, became her main adviser and tried to interest her in the affairs of the kingdom but the authority of the Queen, who was certainly less charismatic than her father, was challenged by the chiefs, who had won back an important part of their prerogatives since the death of Pōmare II. The power of the Pōmare had become more symbolic than real; time and time again Queen Pōmare, Protestant and anglophile, sought in vain

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