Samoan literature imperialism, Language shift, and linguicide. Samoan literature Samoan literature can be divided into oral (pre-colonial and post-colonial) and written literatures, in the Samoan language and in English or English translation, and is from the Samoa Islands of independent Samoa and American Samoa, and Samoan writers in diaspora. Samoan as a written language emerged after 1830 when Tahitian and English missionaries from the London Missionary Society, working with Samoan chiefly orators, developed a Latin script based Samoan written language. Before this, there were "logologo" (tapa signs) and "tatau" (tattoo signs) but no phonetic written form. Pre-colonial and post-colonial Samoan oral literature
Samoan language and a reversed apostrophe, ' ("koma liliu" or "ʻokina"), indicates the glottal stop, as in many other Polynesian languages. The ' ("ʻokina") is often replaced by ("apostrophe") in modern usage. The additional letters h, k, r are used in foreign loanwords, apart from the single interjection "puke(ta)!" 'gotcha!'; although the sound is found in native words in colloquial speech, it is spelled t. The letter g represents a velar nasal, as in the English word "sing," rather than a voiced velar stop, as in the English "go." Thus, the correct pronunciation of Pago Pago is not "Pay-go Pay-go" but "Pah-ngo