Samoan
Samoan (Gagana Sāmoa, is the language of the Samoan Islands

Samoan Islands

The Samoan Islands or Samoa Islands is an archipelago covering in the central South Pacific, forming part of Polynesia and the wider region of Oceania...

, comprising the independent country of Samoa

Samoa

Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in...

 and the United States territory of American Samoa

American Samoa

American Samoa is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the sovereign state of Samoa...

. It is an official language—alongside English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

—in both jurisdictions. Samoan, a Polynesian language

Polynesian languages

The Polynesian languages are a language family spoken in the region known as Polynesia. They are classified as part of the Austronesian family, belonging to the Oceanic branch of that family. They fall into two branches: Tongic and Nuclear Polynesian. Polynesians share many cultural traits...

, is the first language for most of the Samoa Islands' population of about 246,000. With many Samoan people

Samoans

The Samoan people are a Polynesian ethnic group of the Samoan Islands, sharing genetics, language, history and culture. Due to colonialism, the home islands are politically and geographically divided between the country of Samoa, official name Independent State of Samoa ; and American Samoa, an...

 living in other countries, the total number of speakers worldwide is estimated at 370,000. The language is notable for the phonological

Phonology

Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...

 differences between formal and informal speech as well as a ceremonial form used in Samoan oratory.
Samoan is a member of the Austronesian

Austronesian languages

The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...

 family, and more specifically the Samoic

Samoic languages

The Samoic–Outlier languages, also known as Samoic languages, are a purported group of Polynesian languages, encompassing the Polynesian languages of Samoa, Tuvalu, American Samoa, Tokelau, Wallis and Futuna, and Polynesian outlier languages in New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New...

 branch of the Polynesian

Polynesian languages

The Polynesian languages are a language family spoken in the region known as Polynesia. They are classified as part of the Austronesian family, belonging to the Oceanic branch of that family. They fall into two branches: Tongic and Nuclear Polynesian. Polynesians share many cultural traits...

 subphylum.