Proto-Polynesian


Proto-Polynesian 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.

Phonology

The phonology of Proto-Polynesian is very simple, with 13 consonants and 5 vowels. Note that *q in Proto-Polynesian most probably was a glottal stop .

Consonants

BilabialAlveolarVelarGlottal
Voiceless stop
Nasal
Fricative
Trill
Lateral
Glide

Vowels

Proto-Polynesian had five simple vowels,, 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.

Sound correspondences

Vocabulary

The following is a table of some sample vocabulary as it is represented orthographically in various languages. All instances of represent a glottal stop, IPA. All instances of and Samoan represent the single phoneme. The letter in all cases represents voiced alveolar tap, not.