Paumotu

Paumotu, called Reo Pa'umotu by its speakers, is a Polynesian language of the Austronesian family, spoken across the Tuamotu atolls east of Tahiti. The islands were settled from about 1150 by voyagers from the Society Islands, and movement between reefs gave the language seven dialect areas while keeping it close to Tahitian.

Ferdinand Magellan's Pacific crossing in 1521 made the Tuamotus the first Polynesian islands seen by Europeans, but early contacts were fleeting and changed local life little. In pre-Christian tradition the Pa'umotu chanted hymns to Kiho-Tumu, the supreme creator. In the early nineteenth century missionaries based in Tahiti brought the Latin alphabet and Christian loanwords and began translating scripture into Pa'umotu.