User:Bfrasure/sandbox

Article Evaluation: Samoan language

• There is no flag listed. I will research it.
• There are not Diacritical Marks mentioned.
• I have a few close friends that are Samoan which will help provide guidance for research and any edits I make.

Language Preservation

Though it is not the primary language of a number of nations outside of Samoa, there is an effort by the descendants of Samoans to learn the native language of their ancestors and to better understand their origins and history. Much like any language, a shift is occurring in the way words are spoken and pronounced, especially as Samoans further integrate with other languages. Unfortunately, most looking to learn Samoan are forced to turn to written materials instead of living examples. To preserve the language, linguists must use diacritical marks. Without them, the actual pronunciations of words quickly become altered and lost. The marks are commonly found before, under and above letters in words and are especially helpful for students and non-native speakers to realize the difference the vowels and glottal stops can make in the pronunciation of words.

Examples include:

Samoan with marking	Meaning	Samoan without marking	Meaning
sa‘u	(one of) my	sau	(one of) your
mo‘u	(for) me	mou	(for) you
lo‘u	my	lou	your

Below is another example of a sentence with and without diacritical marks from the Samoan Bible (O le tusi paia, o le Feagaiga Tuai ma le Feagaiga fou lea) [1]:

[Original] Faauta, ua e le foai mai ia te au ...

[With diacritics] Fa'auta 'ua 'e lē fōa'i mai iā te a'u ...

Samoan diacritical marks may seem confusing at first due to the way the language shifts based on context. Also, the mixed use of diacritical marks in literature and even within the same publication can surprise non-native speakers. This is evident in the Bible translation created by early missionaries and Reverend George Pratt which features markings in some words and not others. Part of it was due to the need to save time on the writing and typesetting and to use the markings as a guideline. Much like the Bible helped improve literacy and understanding of the language throughout Samoan communities, written works continue to be important in much the same way today.

Sign with diacritic mark for Hauʻula elementary school in Hawaii

The use of the diacritical marks are not only prevalent in Samoan but also other proto-Polynesian languages, such as Hawaiian, where similar pronunciation losses exist. Since native speakers understand how a word should be pronounced without the markings, words are commonly written and accepted with the markings absent. To prevent the loss of correct pronunciations, however, language preservation groups and the Samoan and Hawaiian governments, are taking measure to include diacritical markings in signage, television programs, school materials and printed media.  

Similarities to other Polynesian languages

There are many shared words between many of the regional languages. Below is a list of examples from 2 other proto-Polynesian languages, Tongan and Hawaiian. Note the presence of IPA^(key) where available.  

	Samoan	Tongan	Hawaiian
Hello	alofa / talofa	Mālō e lelei	aloha
Sky	lagi : /lagi/	langi	lani : /lani/
North Wind	/toʔelau/	/tokelau/	/koʔolau/
Zero	noa, selo : /nɵʊə/	noa	'ole
One	tasi : /ˈta.si/	taha	'ekahi
Two	lua : /luwɔ/	ua	'elua
Three	tolu : /ˈto.lu/	tolu : /ˈto.lu/	'ekolu
Four	fa : /faː/	fa : /faː/	'ehā
Five	lima : /lima/	nima	'elima
Six	ono : /ˈo.no/	/ˈo.no/	'eono
Seven	fitu : /ˈfi.tu/	fitu	'ehiku
Eight	valu : /vəlu/	valu	'ewalu, 'awalu
Nine	iva : /ˈiva/	hiva	'eiwa, iwa, 'aiwa
Ten	sefulu : /sɛfɵlɵ/	hongofulu	'umi

https://muse-jhu-edu.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/article/583352

Tualaulelei, E. M. & Mayer, F. L. J. & Hunkin, G. A. "Diacritical Marks and the Samoan Language." The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 27 no. 1, 2015, pp. 183-207. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/cp.2015.0007

Extras- not used:

Like most Austronesian languages, including all Polynesian, Samoan does not use tone and has no lexical tonal contrasts.

Vowel devoicing is very common

Oratorical register

("dignified language" or otherwise known as "the Samoan Language of Respect" or SLR ).

Sources

http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/Profile.aspx?menu=004&LangID=96 - morpholody

https://lingconf.com/afla22/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/afla22-smo.pdf - Tone

https://mike.bitrevision.com/samoan/03-verbs (verbs)

http://ling.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Ethan%20Campbell-Taylor.pdf The Samoan Reduplication System

http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-PraDict.html George Pratt's Samoan grammar book - recommended Samoan resource

Peer Review

This is a really well done addition to the wikipedia article. In the context of linguistics, you are making some necessary contributions with the bullet points you began with. I think that this particular article is missing a lot of information in the social-linguistics field such as cultural and historical influence and interplay. There could be more on how Samoan language interacts with modern and historical societies- what it means culturally, how it developed as a language, ect.

You made an important contribution in the intro about Samoan descendants learning their history, but I'm not sure that the citation to the "Diacritical Mark" page is intended to be the citation for that fact. If it isn't, it needs to be cited. Also with that sentence, I think it's important to clarify weather the specific descendants you refer to are living on the Island or are second generation Samoans in other countries. The main section of the article states that Samoan is the first language for many on the island, so it wouldn't make sense for the descendants to have to make extra effort to learn Samoan if they were from the island.

I think that the information on the diacritical mark is important, and all of you links work. Good job going the extra mile in getting information. It's also great that you have friends who can give you recourses on this topic and fact check it for you. Just remember to cite sources and maybe seek extra sociolinguistic information.