Proto-Polynesian (abbreviated PPn) is the hypothetical proto-language from which all the modern Polynesian languages descend. It is a daughter language of the Proto-Austronesian language. Historical linguists have reconstructed the language using the comparative method, in much the same manner as with Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Uralic. This same method has also been used to support the archaeological and ethnographic evidence which indicates that the ancestral homeland of the people who spoke Proto-Polynesian was in the vicinity of Tonga, Samoa, and nearby islands.[1]
Phonology
Proto-Polynesian has a small phonological inventory, with 13 consonants and 5 vowels.[2]
Proto-Polynesian had five vowels, /a//e//i//o//u/, with no length distinction. In a number of daughter languages, successive sequences of vowels came together to produce long vowels and diphthongs, and in some languages these sounds later became phonemic.[3]
The following is a table of some sample vocabulary as it is represented orthographically in various languages.[4] All instances of ⟨ʻ⟩ represent a glottal stop, IPA /ʔ/. All instances of ⟨ng⟩ and Samoan ⟨g⟩ represent the single phoneme /ŋ/. The letter ⟨r⟩ in all cases represents voiced alveolar tap /ɾ/, not /r/.
^
Hockett, C.F. (May 1976), "The Reconstruction of Proto-Central Pacific", Anthropological Linguistics, 18 (5): 187–235
^Archaic: the modern Tahitian word for two is piti, due to the practice of pi'i among Tahitians, a form of linguistic taboo. However, the cognate remains in the second-person dual pronoun ʻōrua, roughly translated you two.
