Carolinian language

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Carolinian
Spoken in	Northern Mariana Islands
Region	Saipan, Anatahan, and Agrihan islands, Carolines.
Total speakers	5,700
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Central-Eastern Micronesian Micronesian Proper Ponapeic-Trukic Carolinian
Official status
Official language in	Northern Mariana Islands
Regulated by	No official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1	None
ISO 639-2	map
ISO 639-3	cal
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Carolinian is an Austronesian language spoken in the Northern Mariana Islands, where it is an official language along with English and Chamorro. Carolinian is spoken mostly by the Carolinian people, it is most closely related to Satawalese, Woleaian, and Puluwatese. Carolinian has 95% lexical similarity with Satawalese, 88% with Woleaian and Puluwatese; 81% with Mortlockese; 78% with Chuukese, 74% with Ulithian. A 1990 census estimated the number of speakers at about 3,000, currently 5,700. Carolinian is known as Refaluwasch by native speakers. It has 31 characters in its alphabet.

[edit] References

• "Ethnologue report for language code:cal". Ethnologue: Languages of the World. http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=cal. Retrieved on April 28 2005. 

• "Joshua Project Carolinian of Northern Mariana Islands Ethnic People Prolife". http://www.joshuaproject.net/peopctry.php?rog3=CQ&rop3=101890. Retrieved on December 1 2008.