Literature
Tongan is primarily a spoken, rather than written, language. The Bible and the Book of Mormon were translated into Tongan and few other books were written in it.
There are several weekly and monthly magazines in Tongan, but there are no daily newspapers.
Weekly newspapers, some of them twice per week:
- Ko e Kalonikali ʻo Tonga
- Ko e Keleʻa
- Taimi ʻo Tonga
- Talaki
- Ko e Tauʻatāina
Monthly or two-monthly papers, mostly church publications:
- Taumuʻa lelei (Catholic Church)
- Tohi fanongonongo (Free Wesleyan)
- Liahona (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)
- Tonga star (Tokaikolo)
Read more about this topic: Tongan Language
Famous quotes containing the word literature:
“It is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“Just as it is true that a stream cannot rise above its source, so it is true that a national literature cannot rise above the moral level of the social conditions of the people from whom it derives its inspiration.”
—James Connolly (1870–1916)
“...I have come to make distinctions between what I call the academy and literature, the moral equivalents of church and God. The academy may lie, but literature tries to tell the truth.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)