Ethnicity, Language, & Religion of Kiribati
Ethnicity
Almost everyone in Kiribati is ethnically Micronesian. The Micronesians are a combination of Melanesian, Polynesian, and Filipino, but each group of Micronesians is quite distinct from the next as some tend to be more Filipino in ethnicity, language, food, and culture while others have more pronounced Polynesian attributes, which is the case with the people of Kiribati. It seems the first settlers were Austronesian, but later waves of people arrived and intermarried, including those from Melanesia and Polynesia, over time creating the ethnic group that exists today. Perhaps the closest relatives to the i-Kiribati are the Marshallese and other Micronesian people, but with a more distant relation to the Samoans and Tongans.
Language
The official language of Kiribati is English, however very few people speak English natively. Most of the population natively speaks Gilbertese (as it is often called in English), which is also known as Kiribati, Kiribatese, or i-Kiribati. Gilbertese is a member of the Austronesian language family, making it related to many languages of Australasia and Southeast Asia, but its closest relatives are other Micronesian languages, such as Marshallese.