Information AboutEbeye |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT EBEYE | |
| islands of the marshall islands | |
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REFUGE FROM NUCLEAR FALLOUT Some of the residents of Ebeye are refugees or descendants of refugees from the effects of the cataclysmic 15 megaton Castle Bravo Nuclear Test at Bikini Atoll on March 1 , 1954 . The detonation rained Nuclear Fallout and two inches (50 mm) of radioactive snow on nearby Rongelap Atoll , causing widespread Radiation Sickness , and the birth of tragically malformed infants called "jellyfish babies". The American authorities evacuated Rongelap, and Ebeye was the final destination for many of them. Ebeye was referenced in Malcolm Gladwell 's The Tipping Point for its high suicide rates, which increased exponentially after the first suicide on the island. SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION OF EBEYE When Christian Missionaries first arrived in the Marshall Islands, they introduced Latin Script writing and Orthographized the Marshallese Language . Originally, Ebeye was called and written ''Ebeje'', but the Colonial German administration mispronounced the J as if it were German Language pronunciation, and foreign observers phonetically recorded the name as ''Ebeye''. After World War II , the Americans took possession of the regional mandate from Japan , and mispronounced the name once again as "ee-bye". Because most of the modern Marshallese residents of Ebeye don't have family roots on the island, the American pronunciation has stuck, and everyone uses it, even in Marshallese. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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