Rotuman orthography

Upon missionary contact, various orthographies abounded on the island of Rotuma. The French Catholic Missionaries built an orthography based on their own alphabet, while the primarily English Wesleyan Methodist preachers developed their own orthography to write in Rotuman. The prevalent one used today is one from the English Methodist Reverend C. M. Churchward, in whose knowledge of linguistics the Tongan orthography was also devised. The alphabet, as it appears in Churchward's seminal work, "Rotuman Grammar and Dictionary":
 * a –
 * ȧ or ä –
 * ạ –


 * e –
 * f –
 * g –
 * h –
 * i –
 * j –
 * k –
 * l –
 * m –
 * n –
 * o –
 * ö –


 * p –
 * s –
 * t –
 * u –
 * ü –


 * v –
 *  – the glottal stop

In the cases of the variations to the vowels a, o and i, Churchward's dictionary treats these letters as though there is no variation between the species within the base letter. Hence the word päega, meaning seat, appears before pạri meaning banana, which in turn appears before pau, meaning very much.

In addition, there are instances where all original vowels above appear with a macron, indicating length (that is, they are longer) although vowel length is arguably a phonological process.

Because Churchward’s alphabet was created before a sufficient analysis of Rotuman phonology, it is not purely phonemic. George Milner proposed a more phonemic spelling without diacritics that incorporates the understanding of vowel allophony as having to do with metathesis (see above)