Cultural Words for Coconut in the Tuvaluan Language: The Reflection of the People’s Life in the Language

Abstract

Tuvalu is a small nation which consists of nine atolls at the west end of Polynesia. All the atolls are flat and just above sea level. It has no mountains nor rivers, thus no fresh water, so people depend on rainwater for their daily life water. This extreme environmental feature of the lands disturbs the plants growth as few as 356 vascular plants reported present, of which only 18% are possibly indigenous (Thaman 2012). However, Tuvalu is quite abundant in coconut trees (or niu), which is one of halophilous plants that are tolerant of salt water. Tuvaluan people utilize niu from its roots to its fruits (at various stages of growth) for all the aspects of their daily lives. This fact is symbolized in the six distinct names of the fruit, according to its stages of growth. The purpose of this study is to collect the Tuvaluan words that are related to the coconut tree and to examine how the Tuvaluan people classify the coconut-related environment into their vocabulary. The author presents 152 coconut-related words in the wordlist. Additionally, this study explores how the classification of the vocabulary correlates with the people’s utilization of coconut in their daily life. The discussion is made from the viewpoint of linguistic anthropology; it is the vocabulary of a language that most clearly reflects the physical and social environment of its speakers (Sapir 1912: 228).