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The Tongan language distinguishes three numbers: singular, dual, and plural. They appear as the three major columns in the tables below. The Tongan language distinguishes four persons: First person exclusive, first person inclusive, second person and third person. They appear as the four major rows in the tables below.
Proto-Polynesian language – the reconstructed ancestral language from which modern Polynesian languages are derived. ʻOkina – a glyph shaped like (but distinct from) an apostrophe: used to represent the glottal-stop consonant in some Polynesian Latin-based scripts. Rongorongo – the undeciphered script of Easter Island .
Polynesian languages are all members of the family of Oceanic languages, a sub-branch of the Austronesian language family. Polynesian languages show a considerable degree of similarity. The vowels are generally the same—/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, and /u/, pronounced as in Italian, Spanish, and German—and the consonants are always followed by a vowel.
Tongan is the official language, [7] along with English. Tongan is a Polynesian language of the Tongic branch so is closely related to other languages of the Tongic branch, those being: Niuean and Niuafoʻouan. Tongan is more distantly related to other Polynesian languages such as Hawaiian, Samoan, Māori, and Tahitian, among others.
Tongan is the official language, along with English. Tongan is a Polynesian language of the Tongic branch so is closely related to other languages of the Tongic branch, those being: Niuean and Niuafoʻouan. Tongan is more distantly related to other Polynesian languages such as Hawaiian, Samoan, Māori, and Tahitian, among others. [2]
The history of Tonga is recorded since the ninth century BC, when seafarers associated with the Lapita diaspora first settled the islands which now make up the Kingdom of Tonga. [1] Along with Fiji and Samoa, the area served as a gateway into the rest of the Pacific region known as Polynesia . [ 2 ]
The Tongic languages are a small group of Polynesian languages, which consists of at least two languages, Tongan and Niuean, and possibly a third, Niuafoʻouan. See also [ edit ]
Any description of Tongan culture that limits itself to what Tongans see as anga fakatonga would give a seriously distorted view of what people actually do, in Tonga, or in diaspora, because accommodations are so often made to anga fakapālangi. The following account tries to give both the idealized and the on-the-ground versions of Tongan culture.