Kiribati
Tabiteuea North, 1979 
(photo by Steve Trussel) Click for large image.KIRIBATI, (pronounced like kee-ree-bus, the native pronunciation of Gilberts) is a small island republic in the middle of the Pacific, with a population of about 70,000 Micronesians. Formerly part of the British Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, Kiribati became independent in 1979, while I was there on leave for a year from my graduate studies at the University of Hawaii, doing linguistic research for the Kiribati Peace Corps Language Handbook.
Kiribati Bibliography: the latest version, extensively updated, with title and topical indexes.
Kiribati in the News
photo by Franco Salmoiraghi - click to enlarge2000 greeted with song, dance - January 1, 2000 (The Japan Times)
Date Line Politics - August, 1999 (Honolulu Magazine)
U.N. admits Nauru, Kiribati, Tonga - September 16, 1999 (The Japan Times)
U.N. entry of Kiribati, Nauru OK'd - June 27, 1999 (The Japan Times)
Christmas cleared for spaceport - September 17, 1998 (The Japan Times)
Tiny Island's Date-Line Jog in Race for Millennium - Mar 23, 1997 (Nicholas D. Kristof)
Last sunset of the 20th Century - Jan 25, 1997 (Cleo Paskal)
Pacific braces for millennium storm over matter of degrees - Jan 25, 1996 (Quentin Letts)
One of Robin White's Kiribati woodblock prints, "On the beach at Bikenibeu" (1992) Gilbertese (te taetae ni Kiribati)
From my collection of Gilbertese linguistic data, I've selected a few of the more interesting items. Among these are the earliest known descriptions of the language, Horatio Hale's 966-word list, collected in 1841, as part of the U.S. Exploring Expedition 1837-1842, and published in 1846 with the report of the expedition, and a 320-word list, published in 1847 (collected in 1845) by M. Fabre, a doctor aboard a French ship which picked up a canoe-load of drift Gilbertese, given here in my translation of the original French, with the word list in English order.
Caution: Both the Kiribati-English Dictionary and the English-Kiribati Finderlist below are works in progress, still being edited and proofread. They are posted here 'as-is' for the benefit of researchers, but numerous typographical and other errors must certainly exist, so they should be used with caution and the understanding that the data should be verified. Please send any notices of errors or corrections to e-mail.
A Combined Kiribati-English Dictionary based on the works of
Bingham and Sabatier/Olivacompiled by
Trussel and Groves
1978revised and edited by
Stephen Trussel
2003
An
English-Kiribati
FinderlistAn English index
based on and linked to thecompiled by
Stephen Trussel
2003
Descriptions
of the Kiribati LanguageStephen Trussel
University
of Hawaii1983
Communication & Culture Handbook
— Introduction.
— Lesson: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
— Kiribati-English GlossaryThese handbooks, which I produced with EIL in 1979, are long out of print, and unavailable anywhere that I know of. Additional lessons are coming... eventually. [Note: 2007 - I've heard that Peace Corps has photocopied this and that copies may be available...]
The Morning Stars - 19th C. Missionary Ships to the Gilberts
Louis Becke [1855-1913]
click to enlarge
Story of the Morning Star
The Children's Missionary Vessel
Rev. Hiram Bingham, Jr.
1866Sequel
1883
Morning Stars and Missionary Packet
by Albert S. Baker, M.A., M.D., B.D.
see also Jane Resture's The Story of the Morning Star
Louis Becke, a 19th century Pacific writer, set many of his stories in the Gilbert Islands. I've compiled this bibliography:
To provide a sample of Becke's writings, I've transcribed (and slightly annotated) one of his stories here, a grisly tale of treachery and murder in the early 19th century Gilberts, from his collection of stories "The Ebbing of the Tide":
Robert Louis Stevenson [1850-1894]
Robert Louis Stevenson's "In the South Seas" has two major sections about his time in the Gilberts, one on Butaritari, and one on Abemama. "In the South Seas" is available on-line as a Gutenburg Project e-text. (A list of over 1300 on-line books and references to more can be found at the On-Line Books Page. Here is his Abemama section:
Arthur Grimble [1888-1956]
Here's a little story I wrote based on my recollection of Arthur Grimble's "The Limping Man of Makin-Meang" from his "A Pattern of Islands" (John Murray, 1952). There's more on Arthur Grimble at the Kiribati Home Page.And one of Grimble's own from "A Pattern of Islands":
A new story about calling porpoises:
Christmas Island
photo by Franco Salmoiraghi,
East-West magazine, Fall/Winter 1986
Click images to enlargeChristmas (Kiritimati) Island is some 1,500 miles south of Hawai'i, one of the outlying settlements of Kiribati. Here's a copy of the original draft of the essay I wrote for Franco Salmoiraghi's beautiful photo book on Christmas Island in 1986, and a magazine story I did for East-West magazine at that time.
Links
Kiribati and Tuvalu Association, "official website of the Kiribati and Tuvalu Association of the UK and the Republic of Ireland."
Jane Resture's Kiribati Homepage
KiLSA - Kiribati Law Students Association page
Pacific Islands Jobs - Job opportunities in the Pacific...
Pacific Islands stamps - Pacific Islands Study Circle of Great Britain
Pacific Islands links - Moon Handbooks Micronesia
Mike Wright's Online English-Kiribati Dictionary
