Marquesan is a collection of East-Central Polynesian dialects, of the Marquesic group, spoken in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia. They are usually classified into two groups, North Marquesan and South Marquesan, roughly along geographic lines.^[2]

The most striking feature of the Marquesan languages is their almost universal replacement of the /r/ or /l/ of other Polynesian languages by a /ʔ/ (glottal stop).^[3]

Like other Polynesian languages, the phonology of Marquesan languages is characterized by a scarcity of consonants and a comparative abundance of vowels. The consonant phonemes are:

Of this small number of consonants, /ŋ/ is found only in eastern Nuku Hiva (Tai Pi Marquesan), and /f/ is found only in South Marquesan dialects. In writing, the phoneme /ŋ/ is written ⟨n(g)⟩, and /ʔ/ is written ʻ, the ʻokina.

Unlike most Austronesian languages, the /ŋ/ is not an isolated nasal: it is found only in conjunction with a following /k/. So, whereas the Samoan word for 'bay' is faga, pronounced [ˈfa.ŋa], it is hanga in Tai Pi Marquesan, and is pronounced /ˈha.ŋka/. This word is useful to demonstrate one of the more predictable regular consonantal differences between the northern and southern dialects: in North Marquesan, the word is haka, and in South Marquesan, it is hana.^{[citation needed]}

The phoneme /h/ is represented with the letter ⟨h⟩; however, it is realized phonetically as [h], [x], or [s], depending on the following vowel.^{[example needed]}

The vowel phonemes are the same as in other Polynesian languages, long and short versions of each:

A E F H I K M N O P R S T U V ʻ

a e f h i k m n o p r s t u v ʻ ^[4]

Verbal particles are placed before the verb they modify.^[5]

A noun phrase in Marquesan is any phrase beginning with either a case marker or a determiner. Case markers or prepositions always precede the determiners, which in turn precede the number markers. As such, they all precede the noun they modify.^[7]

There are 11 personal pronouns which are distinguished by singular, dual, and plural. As well as that, there are two other personal pronouns which distinguish possession.^[8]: 100

Complex sentences use verbal nouns in subordinate clauses.

Hanaiapa, o Tua-i-kaie, ua noho me te vehine pootu oko^[9]

Margaret Mutu & Ben Teìkitutoua (2002) present descriptions and examples of possession in Ùa Pou (a north Marquesan dialect). All examples in this section are taken from their work. See notes for more information.

Possession in Marquesan is marked by prepositional particles affixed to the noun phrase which they modify. These prepositional particles relate the phrase as a whole to other parts of the sentence or discourse and therefore can be considered centrifugal particles.^[10] Possession is essentially different from the other types of adposition modification in that it marks a relationship between two noun phrases as opposed to that between the verbal phrase and the noun phrase.

There are four possession markers in Marquesan. They are the prepositions: a, o, na and no. Possessive prepositions a and o translate as 'of' while na and no are attributive, possessive prepositions which translate either as 'belong to, of' or 'for'.^[11]

In these examples, the relation of two noun phases with the use of the possessive prepositions a and o can be seen. The preposition is affixed to the possessor noun phrase which in turn dominates the possessed phrase.

In these examples, we see the relation of constituents which form a noun phrase. This is an example of attributive, alienable possession.

Marquesan distinguishes between two contrastive types of possession.^[10] The first can be described in very broad terms as possession in which the possessor is dominant, active, superior, or in control of the possessed. A and na mark this type of possession:

On the other hand, o and no indicate possession where the possessor is subordinate, passive, inferior to, or lacking in control over the possessed:

Locative constructions in Marquesan follow this pattern (elements in parentheses are optional):

Preposition - (Modifier) - lexical head - (Directional) - (Demonstrative) - (Modifier) - Possessive Attribute/Attributive Noun Phrases^[8]: 282

This locative syntactic pattern is common among Polynesian languages.^[8]: 282

North Marquesan is spoken in the northern islands (Nuku Hiva, Ua Pou, and Ua Huka), and South Marquesan in the southern islands (Hiva Oa, Tahuata, and Fatu Hiva). In Ua Huka, which was almost entirely depopulated in the 19th century and repopulated with people from both the Northern and Southern Marquesas, the language shares traits of both North Marquesan and South Marquesan. Comparative data on the various dialects of Marquesan can be found in the Linguistic Atlas of French Polynesia (Charpentier & François 2015).^[3]

The most noticeable differences between the varieties are Northern Marquesan /k/ in some words where South Marquesan has /n/ or /ʔ/ (glottal stop), and /h/ in all words where South Marquesan has /f/.

The table below compares a selection of words in various dialectal varieties of Marquesan, according to the Linguistic Atlas of French Polynesia,^[12] with their pronunciation in the IPA. Tahitian and Hawaiian are also added for comparison.

The northern dialects fall roughly into four groups:

• Tai Pi, spoken in the eastern third of Nuku Hiva, and according to some linguists, a separate language,^{[citation needed]} Tai Pi Marquesan
• Teiʻi, spoken in western Nuku Hiva
• Eastern Ua Pou
• Western Ua Pou

The southern dialects fall roughly into three groups:

• Pepane: Eastern Hiva ʻOa and Ua Huka
• Fatu Hiva
• Nuku: Western Hiva ʻOa and Tahuata

North Marquesan exhibits some original characteristics. While some Polynesian languages maintained the velar nasal /ŋ/, many have lost the distinction between the nasals /ŋ/ and /n/, merging both into /n/. North Marquesan, like South Island Māori dialects of New Zealand, prefers /k/. Another feature is that, while some Polynesian languages replace *k with /ʔ/, North Marquesan has retained it. (Tahitian and formal Samoan have no /k/ whatsoever, and the /k/ in modern Hawaiian is pronounced either [k] or [t] and derives from Polynesian *t.)

The dialects of Ua Huka are often incorrectly classified as North Marquesan; they are instead transitional. While the island is in the northern Marquesas group, the dialects show more morphological and phonological affinities with South Marquesan. The North Marquesan dialects are sometimes considered two separate languages:^{[citation needed]} North Marquesan and Tai Pi Marquesan, the latter being spoken in the valleys of the eastern third of the island of Nuku Hiva, in the ancient province of Tai Pi. Puka-Pukan, spoken in Puka-Puka and the Disappointment Islands in northeastern Tuamotu, is a dialect of South Marquesan, and should not be confused with the homonymous Pukapukan language spoken in Pukapuka, one of the Cook Islands.

• Cablitz, Gabriele H. (2006). Marquesan: A Grammar of Space. Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs. Vol. 169. Mouton de Gruyter. Archived from the original on March 11, 2007.
• "Grammaire et dictionnaire de la langue des Îles Marquises". Mgr Dordillon's Marquesan language dictionary (in French) (Reissued ed.). Société des études océaniennes, Pape’ete. 1999 [1904]. Archived from the original on 2005-03-14.
• Mutu, Margaret & Teìkitutoua, Ben (2002). Ùa Pou : aspects of a Marquesan dialect. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. ISBN 0-85883-526-6.
• Charpentier, Jean-Michel; François, Alexandre (2015). Atlas Linguistique de Polynésie Française — Linguistic Atlas of French Polynesia (in French and English). Mouton de Gruyter & Université de la Polynésie Française. ISBN 978-3-11-026035-9.
• Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum Bulletins.

• Online version of the Grammaire et dictionnaire de la langue des Iles Marquises – Marquisien–Français (Paris, Institut d'Ethnologie, 1931) (in French)
• Aperçu de la langue des îles Marquises et de la langue taïtienne, accompagné d'un vocabulaire inédit de la langue taïtienne (Johann Buschmann & Guillaume de Humboldt, Berlin, 1843) (in French)
• DoBeS — Marquesan language
• Box of 458 index cards of plant and animal names archived with Kaipuleohone