Samoan language

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Samoan language

The Samoan or Samoan language is the traditional language of Samoa

Samoa

Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa , is a country governing the western part of the Samoan Islands archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean....
and American Samoa

American Samoa

American Samoa is an Territories of the United States of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the sovereign state of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa....
and is an official language—alongside English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
—in both jurisdictions. It is a member of the Austronesian

Austronesian languages

The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia....
family, and more specifically the Samoic

Samoic languages

The Samoic languages are one of the primary classes of Polynesian languages, encompassing the Polynesian languages of Samoa, Tuvalu, American Samoa, Tokelau, Wallis and Futuna, as well as a number of languages, spoken in parts of Tonga, the Cook Islands, New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, and the Federated States o...
branch of the Polynesian

Polynesian languages

The Polynesian languages are a language family spoken in the region known as Polynesia. They are classified as part of the Austronesian languages, belonging to the Eastern Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages branch of that family....
subphylum.

There are approximately 870,337 Samoan speakers worldwide, 69% of whom live in the Samoan Islands. Thereafter, the greatest concentration is in New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous Islands of New Zealand, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands....
, where people of Samoan ethnicity comprise the fifth largest group after New Zealand European, Maori

Maori

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Phonology and alphabet

The Samoan alphabet consists of 15 letters, plus three (H, K, R) that are only used in loanwords:

Aa, Aa	Ee, Ee	Ii, Ii	Oo, Oo	Uu, Uu	Ff	Gg	Ll	Mm	Nn	Pp	Ss	Tt	Vv	(Hh)	(Kk)	(Rr)	‘ Okina The okina, also called by several other names , is a unicameral consonant letter used within the Latin script to mark the phonetic glottal stop, as it is used in many Polynesian languages....

In formal Samoan, with native words, [k] is only found in the interjection

Interjection

An interjection is a part of speech that usually has no grammatical connection with the rest of the Sentence and simply expresses emotion on the part of the speaker, although most interjections have clear definitions....
puke(ta)! 'gotcha!'. However, in colloquial speech /t/ has come to be pronounced [k], and in addition /n/ has merged with /?/ as [?]. /l/ is pronounced following a back vowel (/a, o, u/) and preceding an /i/. /s/ is less sibilant than in English. /h/ and /r/ are only found in borrowings, and /s/ and /l/ may be substituted for them.

Short /a/ is pronounced in a few words, such as mate or maliu 'dead', vave 'be quick'. Diphthong

Diphthong

In phonetics, a diphthong, or , is a contour vowel?that is, a unitary vowel that changes vowel quality during its pronunciation, or "glides", with a glissando of the tongue from one articulation to another, as in the English words eye, boy, and cow. This contrasts with "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, where the tongue is held s...
s are /au ao ai ae ei ou ue/.

Stress is somewhat variable, but generally falls on the penultimate mora

Mora (linguistics)

Mora is a unit of sound used in phonology that determines syllable weight in some languages. Like many technical linguistics terms, the exact definition of mora varies....
—that is, on the last syllable if that contains a long vowel or diphthong, on the second-last syllable otherwise.

Samoan syllable structure

Phonotactics

Phonotactics is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable structure, consonant clusters, and vowel sequences by means of phonotactical constraints....
is (C)V, where V may be long or a diphthong. A sequence VV may only occur in derived forms and compound words; within roots only the initial syllable may be of the form V. Metathesis

Metathesis

Metathesis may refer to the following:* Metathesis , in phonology, a sound change that alters the order of phonemes in a word** Quantitative metathesis, a situation in which two vowel sounds follow directly one after the other and a transposition of vowel length takes place...
of consonants is frequent, such as manu for namu 'scent', lava‘au for vala‘au 'to call', but vowels may not be mixed up in this way.

Grammar

Personal pronouns

Like many Austronesian languages, Samoan has separate words for inclusive and exclusive we

Clusivity

In linguistics, clusivity is a distinction between inclusive and exclusive Grammatical person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called inclusive "we" and exclusive "we"....
, and distinguishes singular

Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
, dual

Dual (grammatical number)

Dual is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities identified by the noun or pronoun....
, and plural

Plural

Plural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers....
. The root for the inclusive pronoun may occur in the singular, in which case it indicates emotional involvement on the part of the speaker.

	singular	dual	plural
First person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deixis reference to a participant in an event, such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns.... exclusive	a‘u , ‘ou	ma‘ua, ma	matou
First person inclusive	ta	ta‘ua, ta	tatou
Second person	‘oe, ‘e	‘oulua	‘outou, tou
Third person	ia / na	la‘ua	latou

In formal speech, fuller forms of the roots ma-, ta-, and la- are ‘ima-, ‘ita-, and ‘ila-.

Vocabulary

Common phrases and words

!English !Samoan !Pronounce |- | Yes | ‘ioe | |- | No | Leai | |- | Please | Fa‘amolemole | |- | Thank you | Fa‘afetai | |- | That's all right | ‘Ua lelei | |- | big - small | tele - la‘itiiti | - |- | quick - slow | vave/tope - gese | - |- | early - late | vave - tuai | - |- | cheap - expensive | taugofie - taugata | - |- | near - far | latalata - mamao | - |- | hot - cold | vevela - malulu | - |- | full - empty | tumu - gaogao | - |- | easy - difficult | faigofie - faigata | - |- | heavy - light | mamafa - mama | - |- | open - shut | tatala - tapuni | - |- | right - wrong | sa‘o - sese | - |- | old - new | tuai - fou | - |- | old - young | matua - talavou | - |- | beautiful - ugly | 'aulelei / 'auleaga | - |- | good - bad | lelei - leaga | - |- | better - worse | feoloolo - leaga tele | - |- | One | Tasi | |- | Two | Lua | |- | Three | Tolu | |- | Four | Fa | |- | Five | Lima | |- | Six | Ono | |- | Seven | Fitu | |- | Eight | Valu | |- | Nine | Iva | |- | Ten | Sefulu | |-

External links