Tongan language

Tongan
lea faka-Tonga
Native toTonga;
significant immigrant community in New Zealand and the United States
EthnicityTongans
Native speakers
(187,000
  • 96,000 in Tonga cited 1998)
    73,000 elsewhere (no date), primarily in NZ, U.S., and Australia
Latin-based
Official status
Official language in
Tonga
Language codes
ISO 639-1to
ISO 639-2ton
ISO 639-3ton
Glottologtong1325

Tongan (English pronunciation: /ˈtɒŋ(ɡ)ən/ TONG-(g)ən; lea fakatonga) is an Austronesian language of the Polynesian branch native to the island nation of Tonga. It has around 187,000 speakers. It uses the word order verb–subject–object and uses Latin script.