Samoan is spoken in Samoa and American Samoa, and in large communities in New Zealand, Australia and the United States. It has an everyday pronunciation and a careful one, and on top of both, a vocabulary of respect for chiefs and ministers. In church, all of it comes together.
Samoan is read, not heard. Three short answers.
No. A speaker cannot preach in Samoan and have the room follow. The talk comes from the stage in one of the spoken languages, and Samoan is one of the languages it arrives in.
No. Samoan is a text language here. Your guest follows the talk on their phone screen rather than in an earbud, while the room carries on in its own language.
Yes. The whole talk in Samoan, on a phone or on the big screen, in the careful written Samoan of the Bible and the church.
Several pages in this section show real sentences from our own system. We publish sample lines only after a native speaker has read them, and for Samoan that has not happened yet. If you read Samoan, we would welcome your help.
Samoans speak of two styles. The careful style, often called tautala lelei, good speech, is the one used in the Bible, at school, on the news and in church. The everyday style, used among family and friends, changes some sounds: a t often becomes a k, and an n becomes the sound written g.
So the same word can sound different at home and in the pulpit, and written Samoan always follows the careful style. Our captions do too. It is exactly what a Samoan reader expects to see in church, even if it is not how they would talk to a cousin.
Samoan has a respectful vocabulary, used when speaking to or about chiefs, orators and ministers. Many common words have a respectful counterpart, and choosing the ordinary one in the wrong place is noticed at once.
In church this reaches its height. The minister holds a place of great honour in a Samoan village and congregation, and prayers and sermons use a dignified, carefully chosen Samoan. A caption that sounds casual will feel wrong, even when every word is understood.
Where your church has fixed words for God, for Jesus or for its minister, add them to Keywords, so they arrive the same way every time.
Samoan Christianity goes back to the missionaries who arrived in the 1830s, and the Bible they translated is still the foundation of church Samoan.
The complete Bible in Samoan was finished in the nineteenth century, and its language set the standard for written Samoan. Many families read it every day and know long passages by heart.
In Samoa, nearly every village has a church at its centre, and Sunday is kept for worship, family and rest. The pattern travels: a Samoan congregation abroad is a village as much as a church.
Many Samoan villages keep an evening time of prayer, when the village goes quiet for family devotions. Faith is not only a Sunday matter.
A Samoan family arriving at your church brings its own sense of order: elders first, the minister honoured, children close. Small gestures of respect go a long way.
Samoan congregations are at the centre of Samoan life wherever it is lived.
Auckland has one of the largest Samoan communities anywhere outside Samoa, and Samoan is among the most spoken languages in New Zealand homes.
Samoan congregations meet across Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, often sharing a building with an English speaking church.
American Samoa is a territory of the United States, and Samoan communities live in Hawaii, California and Washington, many of them gathered around their church.
Not with MulingStream. Samoan is a language guests read here, so the talk needs to come from the stage in one of the spoken languages, such as English. Samoan captions then follow every sentence.
The careful written style, the Samoan of the Bible, of school and of church. It is what a Samoan reader expects to see in a service.
Not in Samoan, which is a text language here. A guest who would rather listen can choose English, which has a voice.
Yes. If your pass has room for both, Tongan and Samoan run side by side, each guest choosing on their own phone. They are related Polynesian languages, but different, and each family will want its own.
Samoa's Polynesian neighbour, and the other pages in this section.
Or open the full list of 200+ and check the three columns for the languages your room actually needs.
Nothing to install, no card, and your guests need nothing but the phone already in their pocket.