Rotuman language

Rotuman
Fäeag Rotuạm
Native to	Fiji
Region	Rotuma
Ethnicity	Rotumans
Native speakers	7,500 (2002)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian? Eastern Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Central–Eastern Oceanic? Central Pacific West Fijian – Rotuman Rotuman
Official status
Official language in	Rotuma, Fiji
Recognised minority language in	Fiji
Language codes
ISO 639-3	rtm
Glottolog	rotu1241
Rotuman is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Rotuman, also referred to as Rotunan, Rutuman or Fäeag Rotuạm (citation form: Faega Rotuma), is an Austronesian language spoken by the Indigenous Rotuma people in the South Pacific. Linguistically, as well as culturally, Rotuma has had Polynesian-influence culture and incorporated as a dependency into the Colony of Fiji in 1881. Contemporary Rotuman is a result of significant Polynesian borrowing, following Samoan and Tongan migrations into Rotuma.^[2]

The Rotuman language has sparked much interest with linguists because the language uses metathesis to invert the ultimate vowel in a word with the immediately preceding consonant, resulting in a vowel system characterized by umlaut, vowel shortening or extending and diphthongization.

Unlike its Pacific neighbors, Rotuman is typically considered an AVO (agent–verb–object) language.