Samoan and English. Samoan is a major Polynesian dialect, and as such, is similar to Hawaiian, Tongan, Tahitian, Maori and other island languages. It is not necessarily mutually intelligible with the other dialects, although many words are identical or nearly identical, with identical or similar meanings.
Reduplicated words — such as Pago Pago, the capital of American Samoa — are common in Polynesian languages; but many people do not realize that the letter 'g' in Samoan represents the unreleased 'ng' sound as in the English word 'singer' — not the released-G sound as in the word 'finger.'
Also interesting, the sounds represented by the letters 'k' and 't' are completely interchangeable in vernacular Samoa with changing the meaning of the words. For example, there's no meaningful difference between talofa and kalofa, which both mean 'hello.'
Most Polynesian languages also use regular and longer-sounding vowels, with the latter sometimes marked with a macron over the letter. Polynesian long vowels are not to be confused with English long and short vowels, as in the words "hate" and "hat," respectively. While English vowels can actually be lengthened in pronunciation, that doesn't change the meaning of the word; whereas in Samoan the use of a long vowel vs. the same vowel in its regular form changes the meaning of the word.
For example, mama means 'ring,' mamä means 'clean' and mämä means 'lightweight' (please note we're using a European-style umlaut over the long vowels since most computers do not have fonts with macron capability). So, if you want to impress a Samoan, lengthen the first vowel in the word Sämoa.
