What is the most common spoken language in Polynesia?

The best-known Polynesian languages are Samoan, with about 200,000 speakers; Maori, spoken in New Zealand by about 100,000 persons; Tahitian, with an unknown number of native speakers but widely used as a lingua franca in French Polynesia; and Hawaiian, with only a few remaining native speakers but formerly spoken by …

What is the Polynesian language called?

Hawaiian
Hawaiian (ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, pronounced [ʔoːˈlɛlo həˈvɐjʔi]) is a Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family that takes its name from Hawaiʻi, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language of the US state of Hawaii.

How many Polynesian dialects are there?

thirty Polynesian languages
Composition. Most researchers agree that about thirty Polynesian languages can be identified. None is spoken by more than half a million people, and about half are spoken by a thousand people or fewer. The languages with the largest numbers of native speakers are Maori, Samoan, Tahitian, and Tongan.

What Polynesian language is used in Moana?

Tokelauan language
As far as I can tell, the non-English lyrics of the standout Moana song are in the Tokelauan language. This is the native language of Foa’i, who is the lead singer/songwriter for the group Te Vaka, and most of their songs are performed in this language as well.

Is Spanish spoken in Polynesia?

French in New Caledonia, in Vanuatu, in Wallis and Futuna and French Polynesia. Japanese in the Bonin Islands. Spanish on Easter Island, Galápagos Islands and Juan Fernández Islands.

What language does Bora Bora speak?

The main languages in Bora Bora are French and Tahitian, but you’ll find that many people also speak English, especially resort employees. French Polynesians move at a relaxed pace.

How do you say hello in Bora Bora?

Hello – Ia Orana (yo-rah-nah) Welcome – Maeva (mah-yeh-vah) Thank you – Maururu (mah-roo-roo)

What languages are spoken in Polynesia?

The Central Pacific languages. Olive is Polynesian (not shown: Rapa Nui) The Polynesian languages are a language family spoken in geographical Polynesia and on a patchwork of outliers from south central Micronesia to small islands off the northeast of the larger islands of the southeast Solomon Islands and sprinkled through Vanuatu .

How many languages does Polynesian speak?

There are approximately forty Polynesian languages. The most prominent of these are Tahitian, Samoan, Tongan, Māori and Hawaiian. As humans first settled the Polynesian islands relatively recently and because internal linguistic diversification only began around 2,000 years ago, the Polynesian languages retain strong commonalities.

How many people speak Polynesian languages?

Polynesian languages: , family of languages estimated at from 300 to 500 tongues and understood by approximately 300 million people in Madagascar; the Malay Peninsula ; Indonesia and New Guinea; the Philippines; …..

Did Polynesians have a written language?

But you have to remember, Polynesians didn’t even have a written language. But they had the mental capacity to frequently and repeatedly transit across thousands of miles of open ocean by way finding techniques and navigation that literally confounded European navigators.