Austronesian · ISO 639-3 gil
Gilbertese Language Taetae ni Kiribati
Gilbertese is an Austronesian language spoken by about 116,280 people in 1 country. It is an official language of Kiribati. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Gilbertese is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Gilbertese
Language family
- Austronesian
- Malayo-Polynesian
- Eastern Malayo-Polynesian
- Oceanic
- Micronesian
- Central Micronesian
- Gilbertese
Writing system
Latin script
Related languages
About the Gilbertese language
Gilbertese (Taetae ni Kiribati) is spoken by about 116,280 people, which makes it the 524th most spoken language in the world — just behind Ixil (140,000) and ahead of Kashubian (108,000). It belongs to the Austronesian language family and, more precisely, to the Central Micronesian group within the Eastern Malayo-Polynesian branch.
Where is Gilbertese spoken?
Gilbertese is used in 1 country. The largest communities live in Kiribati (69,927). More than half of the population speaks it in Kiribati — the places where travellers will hear it everywhere.
Gilbertese is an official language in 1 country: Kiribati.
Writing system and status
Gilbertese is written in the Latin script. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Marshallese, Nauru, Samoan, Fijian, Maori, Tonga (Tonga Islands) and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-3 gil.
Frequently asked questions about Gilbertese
How many people speak Gilbertese?
Where is Gilbertese spoken?
In which countries is Gilbertese an official language?
What language family does Gilbertese belong to?
What is Gilbertese called in Gilbertese?
Is Gilbertese an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.