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26-636: The Niue Assembly or Niue Parliament ( Niuean : Niue Fono Ekepule ) is the legislature of Niue . It consists of 20 members; 14 representatives of the villages and 6 elected on a common island-wide roll. Members are directly elected by universal suffrage, and serve a three-year term. Niue follows the Westminster system of government, with the Premier elected by the Assembly and the Cabinet drawn from it. The Assembly

52-458: A final vowel, occasionally prodelision (elision of initial vowel), synizesis (pronunciation of two vowels as one without a change in spelling), or contractions such as αει->ᾷ. The first of the two vowels may be converted to a glide to prevent hiatus. This differs from epenthesis as described above, since only the second vowel is retained in its original form. For example, in Luganda , /muiko/

78-514: A following ā: fā, gā, hā, kā, lā, mā, nā, pā, tā, vā, rā, sā . Vowel length can be marked with a macron ; however, this is not always done. As with many languages, writing was brought to Niue in connection with religion, in this case with Christianity by missionaries educated in Samoa . This has led to some Samoan influences in morphology and grammar and also to a noticeable one in spelling: as in Samoan,

104-607: A member of the Assembly is elected Speaker, they must resign their seat. The Speaker does not vote in proceedings, and does not enjoy a casting vote. The current Speaker is Hima Douglas . Elections are held under a simple plurality system , with electors in the fourteen villages electing one member per village by majority vote, and six members from a common roll. Electors and candidates must be either New Zealand citizens or permanent residents of Niue, continually resident for at least three years at some point, and ordinarily resident for twelve months prior to enrolment as an elector or, as

130-469: A period separating the first syllable, / l oʊ / , from the second syllable, ⟨ ɚ ⟩. In Dutch and French , the second of two vowels in hiatus is marked with a diacritic (or tréma ) if otherwise that combination could be interpreted as a single vowel (namely either a diphthong, a long vowel, or as having one of the vowels silent, etc.). Examples are the Dutch word poëzie ("poetry") and

156-431: A result of the elision of a historical intervocalic consonant. Two adjacent identical short vowels are always pronounced separately, as are combinations of any two long vowels or a short and a long vowel; two adjacent different short vowels may undergo hiatus or form a diphthong. This must be determined from the morphology or etymology of the word. The basic structure of a Niuean syllable is (C)V(V); all syllables end in

182-487: A secondary stress. The Niuean language does not contain the glottal stop , which is present in its closest relative, Tongan . This has caused some distinct words to merge. For example, Tongan taʻu ('year') and tau ('fight') have merged in Niuean as tau ('year; fight'). Niuean orthography is largely phonemic; that is, one letter stands for one sound and vice versa . The traditional alphabet order, given with

208-448: A vowel or diphthong, and may start with at most one consonant. Consonant clusters in borrowed words are broken up with epenthetic vowels , e.g. English 'tractor' becomes tuleketā . The stress on a Niuean word is nearly always on the penult (second-to-last syllable), though multi-syllable words ending in a long vowel put primary stress on the final long vowel and secondary stress on the penult. Long vowels in other positions also attract

234-604: Is descended from the Island Council established under the Cook Islands Act 1915 . This was disbanded in 1959 and reconstituted as the Assembly, which was successively granted greater control. The Assembly assumed full law-making power within the constitution upon self-government in 1974. The Assembly is physically located in Alofi . The Assembly is presided over by a Speaker, elected by its members from outside their ranks. If

260-426: Is distinctive in Niuean; vowels are either long or short. Furthermore, two adjacent identical vowels (whether short-short, short-long, long-short, or long-long) form a rearticulated vowel ; the sound is distinct from one long vowel. Both short and long vowels can occur in any position. All short vowels may combine with one another to form diphthongs. The possible diphthongs are outlined in the table below. Hiatus

286-511: Is most often a semivowel or a glottal , but all kinds of other consonants can be used as well, depending on the language and the quality of the two adjacent vowels. For example, some non-rhotic dialects of English often insert /r/ to avoid hiatus after non-high word-final or occasionally morpheme-final vowels. In Greek and Latin poetry, hiatus is generally avoided although it occurs in many authors under certain rules, with varying degrees of poetic licence. Hiatus may be avoided by elision of

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312-435: Is realised as [mwiːk.o] . In some cases, this may result in the transfer of accent and/or length from the first to the second vowel, e.g. Icelandic sjá ← * sé + a . When necessary to indicate a hiatus, either for general clarity or to distinguish it from a diphthong, IPA uses a period ⟨ . ⟩ to indicate the syllable break. For example, lower can be transcribed ⟨ ˈloʊ.ɚ ⟩, with

338-424: Is the case of Japanese , Nuosu , Bantu languages like Swahili , and Lakota . Examples are Japanese aoi ( 青い ) 'blue/green', and Swahili eua 'purify', both with three syllables. Many languages disallow or restrict hiatus and avoid it by deleting or assimilating the vowel sound or by adding an extra consonant sound. A consonant sound may be added between vowels ( epenthesis ) to prevent hiatus. That

364-447: Is the separate pronunciation of two adjacent vowels, as opposed to diphthongs , which are written as two letters but pronounced as one sound. These two vowels may be the same or be different ones. Hiatus typically occurs across morpheme boundaries, such as when a prefix ending with a vowel comes before a root beginning with that same vowel. It may also occur, rarely, within monomorphemic words (words that consist of only one morpheme) as

390-556: The affrication of /t/ to [ ts ] before these vowels and subsequent change of [ts] to [s] . While older foreign borrowings (such as tī from English 'tea') underwent this change along with (or perhaps by analogy with) native words, words borrowed into Niuean after this development retain the original [t] (for example, telefoni and tikulī from 'telephone' and 'degree'). /r/ and /s/ are marginal phonemes, only appearing in foreign borrowings. Some speakers substitute [l] and [t] , respectively. Vowel length

416-536: The French word ambiguë (feminine form of ambigu , "ambiguous"). This usage is occasionally seen in English (such as coöperate , daïs and reëlect ) but has never been common, and over the last century, its use in such words has been dropped or replaced by the use of a hyphen except in a very few publications, notably The New Yorker . It is, however, still sometimes seen in loanwords such as naïve and Noël and in

442-647: The Niue Public Service Commission, or an appropriate Commission of Inquiry respectively. A bill becomes law when passed by the Assembly and certified by the Speaker. There is no Royal Assent . Niuean language Niuean was spoken by 1,600 people on Niue Island (97.4% of the inhabitants) in 1991, as well as by speakers in the Cook Islands , New Zealand , and Tonga , for a total of around 8,000 speakers. There are thus more speakers of Niuean outside

468-523: The case may be, nomination as a candidate. The power of the Assembly to pass legislation is circumscribed by the constitution. Any member may introduce a bill, but the Assembly may not proceed on bills dealing with financial matters without the consent of the Premier. Bills affecting the criminal law or personal status, the public service or Niuean land may not proceed without a report from the Chief Justice,

494-503: The dialects are mainly in vocabulary or in the form of some words. Examples of differences in vocabulary are volu (Tafiti) vs matā (Motu) for scrape, scraper and lala (Tafiti) vs kautoga (Motu) for guava (plant) ; examples of differences in form include hafule (T) / afule (M), aloka / haloka , nai / nei , ikiiki / likiliki , and malona / maona . [ s ] is an allophone of /t/ before front vowels (both long and short /i/ and /e/ ); this most likely arose from

520-670: The end of the stem. Similarly, in Scottish Gaelic , hiatus is written by a number of digraphs : bh, dh, gh, mh, th . Some examples include abhainn [ˈa.ɪɲ] "river"; latha [ˈl̪ˠa.ə] "day"; cumha [ˈkʰũ.ə] "condition". The convention goes back to the Old Irish scribal tradition, but it is more consistently applied in Scottish Gaelic: lathe (> latha ). However, hiatus in Old Irish

546-583: The island itself than on the island. Most inhabitants of Niue are bilingual in English . In the early 1990s, 70% of the speakers of Niuean lived in New Zealand. Niuean consists of two main dialects, the older Motu dialect from the north of the island and the Tafiti dialect of the south. The words mean, respectively, the people of the island and the strangers (or people from a distance ). The differences between

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572-424: The occurrence of two separate vowel sounds in adjacent syllables with no intervening consonant . When two vowel sounds instead occur together as part of a single syllable, the result is called a diphthong . Some languages do not have diphthongs, except sometimes in rapid speech, or they have a limited number of diphthongs but also numerous vowel sequences that cannot form diphthongs and so appear in hiatus. That

598-419: The proper names Zoë and Chloë . In German , hiatus between monophthongs is usually written with an intervening h , as in ziehen [ˈtsiː.ən] "to pull"; drohen [ˈdʁoː.ən] "to threaten"; sehen [ˈzeː.ən] "to see". In a few words (such as ziehen ), the h represents a consonant that has become silent, but in most cases, it was added later simply to indicate

624-598: The sound /ŋ/ ( Help:IPA ) is written g , rather than ng as in Tongan and some other Polynesian languages with this sound. (McEwen (1970) uses ng in his dictionary; however, this feature of his spelling was not popular, particularly since it conflicted with the spelling used in the Niuean Bible.) Niuean can be considered a VSO language; however, one analysis of Niuean uses ergative terminology, in which case it may be better to speak of verb–agent–patient word order. Because

650-435: The traditional names of the letters, is ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, fā, gā, hā, kā, lā, mō, nū, pī, tī, vī, rō, sā . Note that rō and sā as introduced letters are ordered at the end. Sperlich (1997) uses an alphabetical order based on English for his dictionary: a, ā, e, ē, f, g, h, i, ī, k, l, m, n, o, ō, p, s, t, u, ū, v ( r is left out since no words start with this letter). He recommends that consonants be named consistently with

676-687: The unmarked case is the absolutive, Niuean transitive verb constructions often appear passive in a literal translation. Compare: Kua TAM kitia see e ERG ia he e ART kalahimu crab Kua kitia e ia e kalahimu TAM see ERG he ART crab "The crab was seen by him." Kua TAM kitia see e ART kalahimu crab Kua kitia e kalahimu TAM see ART crab Hiatus (linguistics) In phonology , hiatus ( / h aɪ ˈ eɪ t ə s / hy- AY -təs ) or diaeresis ( / d aɪ ˈ ɛr ə s ɪ s , - ˈ ɪər -/ dy- ERR -ə-siss, -⁠ EER - ; also spelled dieresis or diæresis ) describes

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