Filipino to Tahitian: identify both who is included and whether we means two people
Inclusion does not by itself provide a head count
A Filipino instruction using tayo includes the person being addressed, but that does not necessarily restrict the task to the speaker and that listener alone. Other people can be included. A Tahitian translation needs to preserve both the membership of the group and, where relevant, whether it consists of exactly two people.
Northern Illinois University’s Tagalog lesson defines kami as excluding the listener and tayo as including the speaker and listener, possibly with others. Its dialogue moves from a speaker describing activities with her family to plans involving the newly invited listener. The change concerns who belongs to the group, rather than an automatic change to a group of two.
In a work message, an inclusive instruction could concern two colleagues or a whole team addressed through one representative. If the Filipino sentence does not establish the count, the translator should use surrounding context rather than infer two people from the fact that two people are chatting. The communication channel and the task’s participant group are different things.
Tahitian distinguishes a pair from a larger group
The French Polynesian education programme’s personal-pronoun table distinguishes singular, dual and plural. It lists tāua for the inclusive pair and māua for an exclusive pair, alongside inclusive plural tātou and exclusive plural mātou. Thus the target choice can require a number distinction beyond the inclusion distinction made by Filipino kami and tayo.
The table also lists rāua for two third persons, as distinct from plural rātou. This matters when translating a follow-up about another group: replacing we with they changes the speaker’s participation, but it does not settle whether the other group has two members. Keep reference and number separate as the conversation develops.
For a shared task, first identify the people expected to act. A speaker and listener carrying one object together form a different group from a speaker, listener and another helper. Conversely, a speaker and one absent colleague exclude the listener even though the group still has two people. These illustrative arrangements require different decisions about inclusion and count.
Check the group again after forwarding or quoting
An instruction forwarded to someone new does not automatically acquire a new participant. If the original speaker said that their group would handle a task, forwarding the message to a coordinator should not make the coordinator part of that group. Preserve the original perspective, or explicitly recast the message as reported information.
Before sending the Tahitian version, compare the people assigned to the action with those in the Filipino original. Has a third helper disappeared because a dual form was chosen? Has the listener been included in a task assigned to others? A clear translation preserves the intended working group without inventing either a participant or a precise count.
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