Samoan - list of resources for learning language, history and culture

This is a list of online resources that can help you learn about the Samoan language, culture and history as a newcomer.

Last updated: 2016-11-26

Contact: hedvig.public@gmail.com (please indicate "#samoantips" in the subject line)

Mailing list for students and scholars of Samoan Studies

The Samoan archipelago is located in the south pacific and is since 1900 divided up into American Samoa, a territory of the United States of America, and what is now the independent nation state of Samoa (formerly "Western Samoa"). The archipelago has been inhabited for approximately 2,700-2,900 years and is a part of Polynesia.

The archipelago has rich history and culture of thousands of years before any palagi person came to this part of the world. Polynesian people are well-known for their long sailing voyages across the pacific and they were much in contact with their neighbours, especially Fiji and Tonga.

There is much much more that can be said about this area of the world, its people, language and culture, and much has indeed been said (and said much better than I can) in books, papers, and other venues. This page is a list of other places online where you can go to learn more about Samoan language and culture.

The first palagi (white person) to be in contact with Samoans was Bougainville in 1768. The independent nation state of Samoa was under foreign coloniser rule from 1900 until 1962. First 1900-1914 under German rule, then 1914-1962 under New Zealand rule (British Empire). Samoa still has very close ties with New Zealand. Christian missionaries came to the islands in the 1830's, Samoa is today a very christian country.

There are over 243,000 people living in the Samoan archipelago today, and the vast majority have Samoan as their native language. There is also a very large diaspora community. Ethnologue (a catalogue of the world's languages) estimates the number of samoan speakers outside the Samoan archipelago to be 182,077. 86,400 of those are found in New Zealand. This means that of the total population of Samoan speakers (430,677), 42% lives outside the Samoan archipelago. Take note that these are numbers of Samoan speakers, there are many more who identify as Samoan but not as Samoan speakers.

Most of the members of the diaspora community live in a country where English is spoken everyday, and it can be hard to keep the Samoan language and culture alive. This has inspired lots of people to start blogs and websites helping others to learn about the language and the culture. It is also possible to take classes in the language outside the Samoan islands. This list is a part of that effort to support the Samoan community, in particular the diaspora community. I strive to keep this list as updated as possible. I hope you enjoy. If you have any suggestions for additions, don't be shy to leave them below.

I've divided this list into three sections: language, culture and history. I have not included links to wikipedia articles, not because they are not good or valuable (quite the opposite), but because I believe that readers can already find these easily. A good places to start is here.

This list is in English, mainly because of my lack of skills in the language and that the target audience is people who do not speak Samoan, yet.

Most of the resources are available for free online, others are not online and yet others have a price tag. In the case of specific academic publications, I've put up the bibliography reference. If you're looking for anything in particular that you have a hard time getting hold of, you may contact me and maybe I can help you. My email is: hedvig.public (at) gmail . com.

There's other similar lists like this out there on the interwebs, for example this one by Jason Leigh. This one is meant to be a guide to primarily online publications and sites that can help people learn about Samoan language, culture and history.

Samoan language

Before you start, it's important to know some basics concerning the writing system and conventions. Samoan makes a difference between long and short vowels, and this is marked using the so called "macron": a vs ā, e vs ē etc. There is also a glottal stop consonant (that sound that cockney english speakers make in the middle of "bottle" instead of a "t"), and it is commonly marked by an inverted comma or apostrophe "'". However, there is currently not a universal convention in how to use these markers. Some writers use them all the time and consistently, and some drop them all together. The Samoan government appointed a language commission in 2014, it is yet unclear if they will make the practice of these markers compulsory. In the meantime, it's good to know that these markers exists, but that they are not used by all. Some writes use them only sometimes, not consistently. If you see two of the same vowels after each other, for example "faa" or "alii", it's a very good guess that they are in fact separated by a glottal stop: "fa'a" and "ali'i". For more on these two markers, see this article by Tualaulelei, Mayer and Hunkin.

In order to easily write macrons on your computer, visit this guide. Yes, it's for Maori, but in this case it really doesn't matter.

Now, less writing more links.

basic phrases and introduction

Omniglot's Useful Phrases in Samoan
This is part of Omniglot's series of Useful Phrases in different languages. Needless to say, it is very useful.
Basic phrases from the course book of Mosel and So'o'. Mosel, L.U. and Soo, A. Say it in Samoan. D-88, xii + 197 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1997. (PDF freely available here)
This is one of the two main course books for learning Samoan. Since it was published with an open access publisher, it's available in its entirety online. See page 4 for basic phrases.
Digital dialects language learning game for Samoan, by Craig Gibsons
Simple online games for learning basic vocab and phrases
Wikitravel's basic vocab and phrases list
Website with basic vocab, phrases, Bible verses and proverbs by Pen Fiaota
Basic vocab, phrases grammar and more by mylanguages.org
Collin Boren's leaning Samoan YouTube-videos
Google Translate has recently launched Samoan. This was accomplished together with the team behind the Fa'asamoaApp
Smartphone apps
- Fa'asamoa app
- This is a smartphone app by Canon Taito for learning Samoan available both for Android and iPhone. It is not free for android users.
- Samoa Language app
- Smartphone app by Nikle LLC, available for iPhone (not free)
Colloquial phrases from the famous 1893 dictionary by Pratt
From the well-known dictionary, made available online by the University of Victoria Wellington. Take note that most of the phrases are commands and very outdated, for example "Funa, o ia outou ina palu ula. Women, go you and fish for prawns."....

medium level learners

course books
- Mosel, L.U. and Soo, A. Say it in Samoan. D-88, xii + 197 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1997. (PDF freely available here)
- Since it was published with an open access publisher, it's available in its entirety online.
- Galumalemana Afeleti Hunkin. 2009. Gagana Sāmoa: A Samoan Language Coursebook. University of Hawaii Press. 199pp.
- This book is not available online.
- Peace Corps manual from 1991 by Kaslano (free PDF available here)
- Includes a lot of information, including advice for expressing feelings and medicinal plants

advanced learners

Two publications by Galumalemana Alfred Hunkin that provides support in learning based on frequency of words in Samoan. Neither is currently available publicly online.
- Hunkin, G. A. (2001). Corpus of contemporary colloquial samoan. Master’s thesis, Victoria University of Wellington.
- Hunkin, G. A (2011) A Frequency based word list for teaching the Samoan language. New Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics;2011, Vol. 17 Issue 1, p1

dictionaries

Online dictionary by the Laboratory for Advance Visualiation and Applications (LAVA)
Pratt 1893 (3rd edition) (available for free online here) This is one of the best known and most used dictionaries of Samoan, even by Samoans. The University of Victoria Wellington has kindly put up an online version.
Milner. G.B. 1966. Samoan Dictionary. Aotearoa, New Zealand: Polynesian Press.
Tusi'upu Sāmoa (2010) by Papaāli`i Dr Semisi Ma`ia`i A recent dictionary of Samoan
Online Samoan Dictionary by Michael Billington

for academic researchers

Prof Emeritus Pawley's list of publications on Samoan from 2002
This is a list that Pawley compiled in 2002 and it contains many important works on the Samoan language
Glottolog's list of works on Samoan
Glottolog is a catalogue of language descriptions. Their list of works on Samoan is very helpful. The site also contains information on the language history tree of Samoan and languages that are related to Samoan.
Articles on Samoan in the Pacific Linguistics archive
By searching for "samoa" in the online of Pacific Linguistics, you can find many freely available PDFs of works on Samoan.
ANU electronic press and their publications on the pacific and Samoa
ANU electronic press is an Open Access publisher that makes research available for free online. You can search their archives here. Three publications you might enjoy:
- Proto-Oceanic Lexicon vol 2 - the physical environment. by Ross, Pawley and Osmond. Learn about the history of oceanic languages and the words for the sea, islands, mountains etc.
  - The Samoan Case (1722–1848) Western Misunderstandings about Sexuality and Divinity by Tcherkézoff
Heti's collection
I have an ever growing collection of academic papers on the Samoan language and culture. You can contact me and describe what you're after, and maybe I can help you. My email is: hedvig.public (at ) gmail. com

Samoan culture

Join samoan society online

One great way to get into Samoan society and culture even if you cannot be in Samoa is to add Samoan content to your daily social media feeds and online life. A lot of Samoan people use Facebook and news and entertainment outlets are also visible online, join in!

Social media
- facebook groups and pages:
- instagram
- twitter
Newspapers
Blogs
- Notebook 1 Samoana
Websites with news and entertainment
- Coconet
- Fresh

Food

Notebook 1 Samoana - food
Great posts and recipies of Samoan food!

Etiquette and fa’aaloaloga

Notebook 1 Samoana - Etiquette
Hamo Geek Girl has written several good posts on Samoan Etiquette

Traditional political system, fa’amatai and ‘ava ceremony

Duranti, A. The Samoan fono: A sociolinguistic study. B-80, xii + 206 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1981. (PDF freely available here)
This is one of the major works on the language and conventions of the fono. See page 9 for description of the village and page 49 for description of houses and seating arrangements during fono

Modern political system