The+Samoan+Language

= The Samoan Language =

Samoa, an island in the Pacific Ocean, contains one of the oldest forms of Polynesian language still in existence today. Samoan is the most widely spoken Polynesian language with almost 200,000 speakers and most of them living in either Independent Samoa or American Samoa.

Languages can be classified in many ways. Anthropological researchers tend to favor the organization of languages into certain schemes. According to Campbell (2002), Samoan is classified in the following way: Samoan < Western < Polynesian < Malayo-Polynesian < Austronesian. It has branched off of larger and broader languages and morphed into the language it is today.

There is such a small dialectal difference within the Samoan languages since the island itself is extremely isolated geographically. However, there are some more noticeable differences between the sociological separations of the people. The language of the tribesman and the language of the chief tend to differ based on dialect. This mainly is influenced by the level of education that each sociological group is able to reach.

The Polynesian language as a whole tends to be relatively homogenous in the sense that the origins of the individual languages are similar in an obvious way. This has led researchers to believe the center and origin of the Polynesian language developed from the Tonga- Samoa area within the last 2500 years. The indigenous Samoan tradition actually holds that the Samoan islands were the original homeland of the entire Polynesian race. The tradition also states that the other Pacific ocean were populated by Polynesians from Samoa in a single migration. Scholars, however, disagree with this and believe the first migration to be from southeastern Asia and a second major migration comprised of the original indigenous Samoans when they were “displaced” by colonial immigration (Accredited Language Services 2011).

The Samoan language, along with other Polynesian languages like Hawaiian, is known for the lack of consonants and over use of vowels within their vocabulary. Another characteristic that Polynesian languages share is their use of particles that can be used to indicate certain characteristics and qualities. This is very similar to the English use of prepositions, articles, and conjunctions.

Samoan uses Latin script in their alphabet, which was originally introduced in 1834 by Christian missionaries. Only a handful of Latin letter are still used today and the system of the alphabet is generally simple. The alphabet consists of the following: cf. a, e, i, o, u, f, g, [ŋ], l, m, n, p, s, t, v. The letters k, h, and r only occur in words loaned by other languages into the vocabulary of Samoa. A large amount of the vocabulary of the Samoan language can be attributed to originate from other languages. A small part of them come from other Oceanic languages, French, and German. The majority of loan words originate from the English language. Due to differences in the alphabets between English and Samoan along with differences phonetically. The borrowed words often have a different shape to them, cf. laisene= license, niusipepa= newspaper, uati= watch, sisi= cheese, nila = needle, pasi = bus, pulumu= broom (UCLA 1992).

Starting at the end of the 19th century and for several decades following Samoa was ruled by Germany and the U.S. The U.K. also had an influence over the islands until in 1899 when the U.K withdrew its hold over Samoa to Germany. From 1947 to 1952, Samoa was under control of New Zealand and in 1962 Western Samoa became an independent state (UCLA 1992).

In both island of Samoa, American and Western, Samoan and English are the official languages and many modern Samoans are fully bilingual (Accredited Language Services 2011). Even though the Samoan language is very concentrated in Samoa and New Zealand, 370,000 Samoan language speakers can be find around the world and is the fourth most- spoken language.