Article about language in Tonga.
New Zealand Ministry of Education. 2000. Guidelines for Tongan language programs. www.learningmedia.co.nz
So this article talks a lot about really specific language things, but I was really surprised that they only have 11 consonants in their alphabet, which explains why there are so many vowels in every word!!! I don't know how I didn't realize that before, but I didn't. It also talks about the importance of pronunciation, which I know I am really bad at. But the same words (or letters put together in the form of a word) can have different meaning depending on where the accent is. It's crazy how different their language is from ours. It also talked about the different levels of language, like the ones they use when they are talking to family and friends vs. the king. They say it's just like in any other language where you use different words depending on the social situation you are in, but it seems a little more complicated than that. I'm just hoping that if I happen to run into the King while I'm in Tonga, he will excuse me because I'm an American. That's probably not the attitude I should have, but I'm really just working on learning how to talk to the normal people right now.
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