Proto-Polynesian language
Proto-Polynesian (abbreviated PPn) is the hypothetical proto-language from which all the modern Polynesian languages descend. It is a daughter language of the Proto-Austronesian language. Historical linguists have reconstructed the language using the comparative method, in much the same manner as with Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Uralic. This same method has also been used to support the archaeological and ethnographic evidence which indicates that the ancestral homeland of the people who spoke Proto-Polynesian was in the vicinity of Tonga, Samoa, and nearby islands. Phonology. Proto-Polynesian has a small phonological inventory, with 13  consonants and 5 vowels. Vowels. Proto-Polynesian has five vowels, , with no length distinction. In a number of daughter languages, successive sequences of vowels came together to produce long vowels and diphthongs, and in some languages these sounds later became phonemic. Vocabulary. The following is a table of some sample vocabulary as it is represented orthographically in various languages. All instances of represent a glottal stop, IPA . All instances of and Samoan represent the single phoneme . The letter in all cases represents voiced alveolar tap , not .