Tongan Language

1. TONGAN
By: Mackenzie Sabin With: Nicole Lavulo

2. Where is Tongan Spoken
• Tongan is a member of the Polynesian branch of
the Austronesian languages spoken by about 95,000 people
mainly in Tonga. It is also spoken in American Samoa,
Australia, Canada, Fiji, New Zealand, Niue, the USA and
Vanuatu. It is closely related to Niue, Wallisian and Samoan.
• Slight dialect differences north to south.
• Lexical similarity: 86% with Wallisian 66% with Samoan

3. Why is it Unique
• There are no consonants in the language
• There are only seventeen letters and one of the letters is actually an
apostrophe
• Speakers of Tongan struggle to pronounce R because it is not found in
the language so they often replace the R sound with the L sound.
• The language contains similar glottal stops represented by an
apostrophe in writing. They are similar to the stops in the English word
“uh-oh”

4. Tongan Alphabet

5. SVO?
• Tongan does not follow SVO order. Instead it puts the verb
before the subject, which is VSO So, “the red house is on a
hill” would become “the house is red on that hill”

6. Lexicon
•The word Tattoo comes from the Polynesian
word Tatau and has the same meaning for both
languages

7. Plurals
• Plurals are marked in front of nouns. There are certain words for nouns.
• Kau pronounced caw is used for things and objects, or groups of
people and is formal
• Fanga pronounced Fan-ga is used for animals and is informal
• Book is tohi (DOH-He) to mark this plural you would say Kau tohi
meaning books

8. Past Tense Markers
• To mark past tense words that indicate they are talking about
the past are used.
• For example, Osi (Oh-cee) translates to done and when it is
placed in front of other words in the form of a question it
automatically indicates it is past tense.

9. Is it a disappearing language?
•It is not necessarily disappearing, but it is
evolving in structure. For example, words her
grandparents spoke are not used now.
•Despite the official language being Tongan in
Tonga they teach English in schools and
throughout the country.