Tongan

Which old sounds Tongan kept

Tongan retains the Proto-Polynesian h, merged with the old s as /h/, and it keeps the glottal stop that most Polynesian languages lost, as Rapa Nui does. Proto-Polynesian had separate r and l, which merged in most of its descendants; Tongan kept l and lost r, so the old distinction can be traced through it. It also has what grammars call a definitive accent, unusual in the family. With Niuean, and possibly Niuafoʻouan, it forms the Tongic subgroup.

How the Privy Council settled the alphabet

The first transcriptions of Tongan were made by Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire of the Dutch East India Company in 1616, in Dutch spelling. The missionary alphabet later put the vowels first. It was still in that order at the Privy Council decision of 1943 on Tongan orthography, but C. M. Churchward's grammar and dictionary used the European order, and that is the order dictionaries follow now: ngatu comes after nusi.

Before 1943 the velar nasal was written g and the unaspirated p was written b. The letter j, used for a sound that merged with s early in the 20th century, was gone by 1943, which is why Tongan s often matches t in other Polynesian languages. The glottal stop, the fakauʻa, should be written with the turned comma ʻ rather than a quotation mark.

What Tongans read in print

Tongan is primarily a spoken language with a large oral literature. One of the first printed texts appeared in William Mariner's grammar and dictionary of 1817. The Bible and the Book of Mormon are translated, and there are weekly papers such as Taimi ʻo Tonga and church monthlies such as Taumuʻa lelei, but no daily newspaper.