Samoan language

Samoan
Samoan
Gagana faʻa Sāmoa
	Map showing Samoa's central place in the Pacific, where the language is most spoken.
Native to	Samoan Islands
Region	Asia-Pacific
Ethnicity	Samoans
Native speakers	510,000 (2015)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian? Eastern Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Central–Eastern Oceanic Central Pacific East Central Pacific Polynesian Nuclear Polynesian Samoic? Samoan–Tokelauan Samoan; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Writing system	Latin (Samoan alphabet); Samoan Braille
Official status
Official language in	Samoa; American Samoa
Language codes
ISO 639-1	sm
ISO 639-2	smo
ISO 639-3	smo
Glottolog	samo1305
Linguasphere	39-CAO-a
IETF	sm-WS (Samoa); sm-AS (American Samoa)

Samoan (Gagana faʻa Sāmoa or Gagana Sāmoa; IPA: [ŋaˈŋana ˈsaːmʊa]) is a Polynesian language spoken by Samoans of the Samoan Islands. Administratively, the islands are split between the sovereign country of Samoa and the United States territory of American Samoa. It is an official language, alongside English, in both jurisdictions. It is widely spoken across the Pacific region, heavily so in New Zealand and also in Australia and the United States. Among the Polynesian languages, Samoan is the most widely spoken by number of native speakers.

Samoan is spoken by approximately 260,000 people in the archipelago and with many Samoans living in diaspora in a number of countries, the total number of speakers worldwide was estimated at 510,000 in 2015. It is the third-most widely spoken language in New Zealand, where 2.2% of the population, 101,900 people, were able to speak it as of 2018.

The language is notable for the phonological differences between formal and informal speech as well as a ceremonial form used in Samoan oratory.

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