Marquesan, French and Tahitian. Marquesan is a major Polynesian language similar to Hawaiian, Tahitian and Samoan. Indeed, some anthropologists and oral traditions suggest the Marquesans may have first come to their islands from Samoa over 2000 years ago. Still, all languages change over time and generations.
When linguists start to compare certain similar Polynesian words, patterns begin to emerge which suggest how these languages differ from one another. For instance, the Marquesan word for 'house' is ha'e, the Hawaiian word for 'house' is hale, and the Samoan word is fale. After verifying such a pattern with many more examples, linguists might conclude that where Marquesan and Hawaiian speakers use an 'h' sound, Samoans use an 'f' sound; and where Samoans and Hawaiians use an 'l' sound, Marquesans use a glottal stop sound represented by the inverted apostrophe.
