Note on Tongan Orthography and Transcription Conventions

Abstract

The Tongan language has twelve consonants ( f h k l m n ng p s t v ‘) and five vowels (i e a o u), roughly identical to the sounds of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) that are written with the same symbols, except for ng, which is a velar nasal (IPA ŋ), and the inverted apostrophe, which represents a glottal stop. Vowels can be phonemically long, in which case the letter is superposed with a macron (e.g., ā). This orthography is standardized. Standard reference works on the language continue to be C. Maxwell Churchward’s grammar (1953) and bilingual dictionary (1959), although the latter is soon to be superseded by a monolingual dictionary compiled by Melenaite Taumoefolau. In several chapters, I analyze brief excerpts of talk. The conventions I follow in the transcripts are those established in the sociological tradition of Conversation Analysis, through the work of Gail Jefferson in particular, designed to provide analytic information on the prosodic quality, rhythm, and nonlinguistic vocalizations audible in the recording. While these conventions have been subjected to criticism, they are nevertheless useful because of their readability and the fact that their widespread scholarly usage makes them easily recognizable. Following is a key to relevant transcription conventions.