The Marshallese language (Marshallese: Kajin M̧ajeļ) or Ebon is a Malayo-Polynesian language of the Marshall Islands.

Marshallese underwent a change of orthography in recent times. It is written in a form of the latin script with some very unusual diacritic combinations.

Here is the (current) alphabet:

A Ā B D E I J K L Ļ M M̧ N Ņ N̄ O O̧ Ō P R T U Ū W

A ā b d e I j k l ļ m m̧ n ņ n̄ o o̧ ō p r t u ū w

Here is the Hail Mary in Marshallese Unicode. Compare with this scanned image to see how it should look with all the diacritics in place.

Io̧kwe eok Maria, kwo lōn̄ kōn

menin jouj;

Irooj ej pād ippam̧.

Kwo jeram̧m̧an iaan kōrā raņ im

ejeram̧m̧an ineen lo̧jiōm̧, Jesus.

O Maria kwojarjar, jinen Anij,

kwōn jar kōn kem rijjerawiwi.

Kiiō im ilo iien

amwōj mej. Amen.

One Marshallese word is yokwe, which means both hello and good-bye. It also means love. (Compare Hawaiian aloha.) This word may also be written lakwe and io̧kwe.

External links

• Marshallese Phrasebook on the website for the Republic of Marshall Islands lists the Marshallese word for the Marshallese language as kajin Majöl
• Peace Corps Marshall Islands Marshallese Language Training Manual (PDF, 275 KB; instead of macrons uses trema on vowels and tilde on n, and underlines instead of cedillas)
• Everything2 page on Marshallese
• Ethnologue report on Marshallese
• Marshallese in the Rosetta Project