Samoan

Samoan is spoken by about 150,000 people in Western Samoa (an independent island state) and by 25,000 in American Samoa (a U.S. territory) in the South Pacific Ocean. It is a member of the Polynesian branch of the Malayo-Polynesian family of languages. The Samoan alphabet contains only fourteen letters—the five vowels plus the consonants f, g, 1, m, n, p, s, t, and v. The letters h, k, and r appear only in words of foreign origin, while b, c, d, j, q, w, x, y, and z are missing entirely. The sign represents a break or hesitation between two vowels (e.g., la'au—tree, fa'i—banana).

Many Samoan words are simple compounds. Fale (building) + oloa (goods) = faleoloa (store), while vai (water) + tafe (to flow) = vaitafe (river). English has contributed innumerable new words such as taimi (time), apu (apple), aisa (ice), loia (lawver), kolisi (college), and niusipepa (newspaper).