Samoan Language - Writing System and Alphabet

Writing System and Alphabet

Encounters with Europeans began in the 18th century followed by the era of colonialism in the Pacific. Samoan was only a spoken language until the early to mid-19th century when Christian missionaries began documenting the spoken language for religious texts and introduced writing using the Latin script. In 1834, an orthography of the language was distributed by the London Missionary Society who also set up a printing press by 1839. The first complete Bible (Tusi Pa'ia, Sacred Book) in the Samoan language was completed and published in 1862.

The first problem which faced the missionaries in Polynesia was that of learning the language of the island which they intended to convert to Christianity. The second was that of identifying the sounds in the local languages with the symbols employed in their own languages to establish alphabets for recording the spelling of native words. Having established more or less satisfactory alphabets and spelling, it was next necessary to teach the indigenous people how to write and read their own language. A printing press, with the alphabet keys used only in the English language, was part of the mission equipment, and it was possible not only to translate and write out portions of the Bible scriptures and hymns in the local language, but to print them for use as texts in teaching. Thus, the missionaries introduced writing for the first time within Polynesia, they were the first printers, and they established the first schools in villages.