The Sāmoan or Samoan language is the traditional language of Samoa and American Samoa and is an official language in both territories. It is a member of the Austronesian family, and more specifically the Samoic branch of the Polynesian subphylum. There are 370,337 Samoan-speakers worldwide, nearly half of them in Samoa.

Grammar

---

Pronouns

---

Like many Austronesian languages, Samoan has separate words for inclusive we and exclusive we, and distinguishes singular, dual, and plural.

Samoan personal pronouns

	singular	dual	plural
First person exclusive	a’u / 'ita / ta	mā’ua / mā	mātou
First person inclusive		tā’ua / tā	tātou
Second person	’oe / 'e	’oulua	’outou / tou
Third person	ia / na	lā’ua	lātou

In formal speech, fuller forms of mā-, tā-, and lā- are ’imā-, ’itā-, and ’ilā-.

Reference

---

• Payne, Thomas E. 1997. Describing morphosyntax: a guide for field linguists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-58224-5.

External links

---

• Ethnologue main Samoan page
• Samoan - English Dictionary
• Samoan Dictionary - An online Samoan dictionary. Samoan to English, English to Samoan.

Languages of American Samoa | Languages of Samoa | Languages of Oceania | Polynesian languages | Austronesian languages | Samoic languages

Samoaeg | Самоански език | Samoanische Sprache | Idioma samoano | Samoan | Język samoański | Gagana faʼa Samoa | Samoan kieli | Samoanska | 薩摩亞語