Talk:Samoan language

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	Oceania Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Polynesia, which collaborates on articles related to Polynesia. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.
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Assessment comments This article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.

If you speak or write Samoan, you may take part in creating an encyclopedia in that language. It could be useful in helping to preserve the language, by giving learners an extra free source of reading material.

See http://sm.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Robin Patterson 05:22, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The following could be useful for anyone working in Samoan or even helping out with the Wikipedia:

• Privately-compiled English-Samoan dictionary
• SamoaChat

Robin Patterson

Contents 1 User sm, User smo 2 Samoan Scouting 3 Any difference? 4 Resources 5 Major reorganization & help needed

[edit] User sm, User smo

Are there no templates like Template:User sm, Template:User smo, Template:User smo-3? ... It's not for me ;-) --Roland2 07:58, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I have looked at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedians_by_language . It would not appear that there are. :( Chris 02:43, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Samoan Scouting

Can someone help render Be Prepared, the Scout Motto, into Samoan? Thanks! Chris 03:53, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Any difference?

Is there any difference between the Samoan they speak in American Samoa and the kind they speak in Samoa? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.100.160.212 (talk) 00:39, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

No, there isn't!! :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.114.58.46 (talk) 22:28, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Resources

Here are some resources, retrieved from http://www.linguistics.emory.edu/POLYGLOT/phonology.html, which might be helpful in improving this article.

Duranti, Alessandro. 1994. From Grammar to Politics: Linguistic Anthropology in a Western Samoan Village. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Duranti, Alessandro. 1990. Code Switching and Conflict Management in Samoan Multiparty Interaction. Pacific Studies. 14(1):1-30.

Lynch, John. 1998. Pacific Languages: An Introduction. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Shore, Bradd. 1982. Sala'ilua: A Samoan Mystery. New York: Columbia University Press.

Keith Galveston (talk) 15:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Major reorganization & help needed

I have reorganized the article into several sections that's the normal layout of other language articles - writing system, phonology, grammar, and vocabulary. Nevertheless, a lot of information is now needed to make it look like a fully complete article.

I also changed the pronunciation guide into IPA, so the IPA cleanup tag is removed. I have, however, relied heavily on Omniglot.com while doing the edit, and while I personally find its information very valuable, I don't know for sure if it counts as a reliable source.

In any case, the page itself isn't satisfyingly clear on the vowel issue. I can only assume that the left one is long, while the right one is short. The /ɔ/ and /o/ seems awfully suspicious: I would have expected a close "o" to be the long one.

I'm not sure either whether Samoan uses officially the apostrophe, or it's just a convenient substitution for okina.

I transcribed every "i" as /ɪ/, and every "u" as /ʊ/, but I used /a/ to transcribe every "a" instead of the expected /ə/ because that's what the original pronunciation guide indicated. That was inconsistent but I didn't have a better solution at the moment. Also, in one example, the "oō" in "faigoōfie" looks extremely strange: I suspect it to be a typo of just "ō", as in "matagōfie".

All those uncertainty led to the addition of a "disputed" tag. Moreover, this article has no footnotes. In conclusion, there leaves a lot to be desired. Keith Galveston (talk) 09:44, 22 February 2008 (UTC)