2948: Why Kiribati Doesn’t Have ‘S’? Jan 16, 2025

The country of Kiribati is pronounced /kiribas/ as is the name of the language [taetae ni Kiribati]. Despite this, however, the modified version of the Latin alphabet they use contains only 13 letters where the letter <S> is not found. The apparent irony is more a matter of coincidence than omission; the language does not natively have this sound. These islands were known as the Gilbert Islands, and ‘Kiribati’ is the closest approximation made in the polynesian language. It happens that /s/ appears as an allophone* of [t] and [k], and so given its usual lack of utility, was not included in the modified alphabet. Early versions of transcribing Gilbertese, the first text for which was the Bible, do use the letter <S>.