Proto-Polynesian (abbreviated PPn) is the hypothetical proto-language from which all the modern Polynesian languages descend. It is a daughter language of the Proto-Austronesian language. Historical linguists have reconstructed the language using the comparative method, in much the same manner as with Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Uralic. This same method has also been used to support the archaeological and ethnographic evidence which indicates that the ancestral homeland of the people who spoke Proto-Polynesian was in the vicinity of Tonga, Samoa, and nearby islands.

Phonology

Proto-Polynesian has a small phonological inventory, with 13 consonants and 5 vowels.

Consonants

Vowels

Proto-Polynesian had five vowels,, with no length distinction. In a number of daughter languages, successive sequences of vowels came together to produce long vowels and diphthongs, and in some languages these sounds later became phonemic.

Sound correspondences

Vocabulary

The following is a table of some sample vocabulary as it is represented orthographically in various languages. All instances of ⟨⟩ represent a glottal stop, IPA. All instances of ⟨ng⟩ and Samoan ⟨g⟩ represent the single phoneme. The letter ⟨r⟩ in all cases represents voiced alveolar tap, not.