Pohnpeian

Pohnpeian is a Micronesian language of the Austronesian family, indigenous to Pohnpei in the Caroline Islands. Its speakers descend from Lapita voyagers who settled the island long before the rise of Nan Madol, the artificial-islet ceremonial town built off Pohnpei's eastern shore from the eighth or ninth century.

Under the Saudeleur rulers, who held power from about 1100 to about 1628, and the decentralized nahnmwarki chiefships that replaced them after Isokelekel's invasion, society was strictly ranked. Pohnpeian preserves this in a high register called Meing, with special vocabulary for people of high rank. Spanish navigators reached the island in 1529 and 1595, but Pohnpeian remained unwritten until Fyodor Litke's Russian expedition recorded a short vocabulary in 1828.