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Origins of the Tongan Language

This essay seeks to explain the origins of the Tongan language. For this purpose I will also be addressing the journey of the ancestors of Polynesia, and how their original language divided and evolved into the Tongan language (and other Polynesian languages) we know today.

6,000 years Before Present Time (B.P.T) the ancestors of the Polynesian people, called the Austronesians, set out from Formosa in South East Asia and began their journey. This journey took the Austronesians to Papua New Guinea, one of the first places they settled in. When they arrived here they found black people already inhabiting the island, and interracial mixing between the blacks and Asians was inevitable. Many years later, by the time the Austronesians resumed their journey and arrived in Fiji, they had become a group of brown people.

It was 3,500 years B.P.T when the [now interracially mixed] Austronesians arrived in Fiji. This was the first island in Polynesia the Austronesians settled i...

Posted by: Gelinde Cobbs

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