English creeps into the Tongan [1]
Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - 10:00. Updated on Thursday, February 18, 2016 - 18:35.
From Matangi Tonga Magazine, Vol. 16, no. 2, September 2001.
Dr Yuko Otsuka, an expert in the Tongan language visited Tonga in July, but during her short stay she was saddened to hear that Tongans are using more and more English words in their daily conversation.
Dr Otsuka agreed that English is the International language, but she was concerned with an erosion in the usage of the Tongan language as the official language of Tonga, and she thinks it will eventually become a language to used only in ceremonies.
Yuko was a Japanese volunteer in Tonga during the early 1990s but after she left Tonga she attended Oxford University, in the United Kingdom from 1995 to 1997, carrying out linguistic studies for a masters and a doctorate degree.
She said that her work focused on trying to disprove the theory that there is a Universal Grammar, “and that this Universal Grammar offers the basic structure for every language in the world, but looking from an English language perspective.”
Yuko said she disproved Universal Grammar theory in her thesis, and she is using the Tongan language as an example of a language that is not based on the Universal Grammar theory.
Yuko said she would like to make a contribution to the teaching of the Tongan language, and she believed it was long overdue for a new Tongan grammar book.