HISTORY

The Rapa Nui language has only ten consonants and five vowels, which makes it difficult to
learn because many different words are written or sound very similar. On the other hand, Rapa
Nui phonology is very similar to the New Zealand Maori, which has led to speculation that the
first navigators to colonize Easter Island could be the same one who arrived in New Zealand.

Presently, what is known as modern Rapa Nui is very influenced by Tahitian. Furthermore, it
has undergone big transformations due to foreign contact, generating loanwords from English,
French and Spanish, in addition to incorporating words that identify recent inventions such as
the airplane or car, which have been introduced directly into the language.

With the passage of time and the influence from these foreign languages, the Rapa Nui
language was in danger of extinction. In the 1960s, Spanish was of great relevance because of
the arrival of the Chilean administration and, with it, the Spanish speaking population: interracial
marriages and the increase in tourism caused many young Rapa Nui to grow up as Spanish
speaking natives, leaving aside learning their mother tongue.

Fortunately for the language, in the last decades, the Rapanui people have experienced an
ethnic reaffirmation which has made them appraise and appreciate themselves as an
indigenous people. This self-assessment has generated a culture that reinforces, among other
things, the association of language to its own identity.

REASONS

With the passage of time and the influence from the foreign languages, the Rapa Nui language
was in danger of extinction. In the 1960s, Spanish was of great relevance because of the arrival
of the Chilean administration and, with it, the Spanish speaking population: interracial marriages
and the increase in tourism caused many young Rapa Nui to grow up as Spanish speaking
natives, leaving aside learning their mother tongue.

Existing attempts:

In 1990, we created the Department of Rapa Nui Language and Culture at the Lorenzo Baeza
Vega school to produce primary education texts for science, history, mathematics, and for
learning to read and write.
Since its inception in 2004, the Rapa Nui Academy has created pre-primary teaching materials
and re-published reading and writing texts for the first two years of primary school. It has also
produced two interactive CDs presenting the concepts of culture, mathematics and geometry.

The Academy devoted the year 2011 to conducting a survey, with the aim of expanding to three
other schools and a public kindergarten on the island. In 2012, it participated in the evaluation of
the law to create an Indigenous Language Sector in all schools attended by students of the
indigenous peoples of Chile.
Number of speakers over time:
+ In 1976, when the language was introduced as a subject in the school curriculum, seventy-six
per cent of schoolchildren spoke Rapa Nui. In 1997, this fell to only twenty-three per cent. In
2016, the figure was reduced to ten per cent.
+ In 2008, the number of fluent speakers was reported as low as 800.
Geographic location of the speakers:
Rapa Nui or Rapanui also known as Pascuan ( or Pascuense, is an Eastern Polynesian
language of the Austronesian language family. It is spoken on the island of Rapa Nui, also
known as Easter Island.
Why it is nececessary saving the language:
Language is inseparable from their way of being, their thoughts, their feelings, their joys and
much more. If their language disappears, the whole socio-cultural foundation of their
community of speakers is put at risk.
For example, family farming has been abandoned in favour of the consumption of national and
transnational products, the origin and manufacturing methods of which are unknown. In the
past, farmers observed the phases of the moon to determine when to plant their crops. Today,
this is a lost art.